No abstract

Preference for curvature has been demonstrated using many types of stimuli, but it remains an open question whether curvature plays a relevant role in responses to original artworks. To investigate this, a novel set of paintings was created, consisting of three variations-curved, sharp-angled, and mixed-of the same 16 indeterminate subjects. The present research aimed to differentiate between liking and wanting decisions. We assessed liking both online (Study 1) and in the lab (Study 2, Task 2), using a continuous slider and a dichotomous forced choice, respectively. In both tasks, participants assigned higher ratings to the curved compared to the sharp-angled version of the paintings. Similarly, when participants were explicitly asked if they wanted to take the paintings home, they assigned higher wanting ratings to the curved version (Study 2, Task 3). However, when they were asked to act as a curator selecting the works they wanted for their gallery (Study 2, Task 4) and to make a physical effort to visually consume the painting (implicit wanting; Study 2, Task 1), no significant difference was found. Finally, we found that implicit wanting decisions did not predict liking for paintings, while liking predicted explicit wanting of the artworks in both the home and art contexts. This confirmed that it is possible to differentiate between liking and wanting responses to artistically relevant stimuli. We conclude that this theoretical distinction helps to explain previous conflicting results on the curvature effect, establishing a new line of research in the field of empirical aesthetics.

Drawing is a way to represent common-use objects. The contour of an object is a salient feature that defines its identity. Preference for a contour (curved or angular) may depend on how familiar the resulting shape looks for that given object. In this research, we examined the influence of shape familiarity on preference for curved or sharp-angled drawings of common-use objects. We also examined the possibility that some individual differences modulated this preference. Preference for curvature was assessed with a liking rating task (Experiment 1) and with a two-alternative forced-choice task simulating approach/avoidance responses (Experiment 2). Shape familiarity was assessed with a familiarity selection task where participants selected the most familiar shape between the curved and the angular version for each object, or whether both shapes were equally familiar for the object. We found a consistent preference for curvature in both experiments. This preference increased when the objects with a curved shape were selected as the most familiar ones. We also found preference for curvature when participants selected the shape of objects as equally familiar. However, there was no preference for curvature or preference for angularity when participants selected the sharp-angled shapes as the most familiar ones. In Experiment 2, holistic and affective types of intuition predicted higher preference for curvature. Conversely, participants with higher scores in the unconventionality facet showed less preference for the curved drawings. We conclude that shape familiarity and individual characteristics modulate preference for curvature.

Simple geometric shapes are associated with facial emotional expressions. According to previous research, a downward-pointing triangle conveys the threatening perception of an angry facial expression, and a circle conveys the pleasant perception of a happy facial expression. Some studies showed that downward-pointing triangles have the advantage to capture attention faster than circles. Other studies proposed that curvature enhances visual detection and guides attention. We tested a downward-pointing triangle and a circle as target stimuli for a speeded response task. The distractors were two stimuli that resulted from the mixture of both targets to control for low-level features’ balanced presentation. We used 3 × 3, 4 × 4, and 5 × 5 matrices to test whether these shapes led attention to an efficient response. In Experiment 1, participants responded faster to the circle than to the downward-pointing triangle. They also responded slower to both targets as the number of distractors increased. In Experiment 2, we replicated the main findings of Experiment 1. Overall, the circle was detected faster than the downward-pointing triangle with small matrices, but this difference decreased as the matrix size increased. We suggest that circles capture attention faster because of the influence of low-level features, that is, curvature in this case.

Preference for curvature has been demonstrated using many types of stimuli, but it remains an open question whether curvature plays a relevant role in responses to original artworks. To investigate this, a novel set of paintings was created, consisting of 3 variations—curved, sharp-angled, and mixed—of the same 16 indeterminate subjects. The present research aimed to differentiate between liking and wanting decisions. We assessed liking both online (study 1) and in the lab (study 2, task 2), using a continuous slider and a dichotomous forced choice, respectively. In both tasks, participants assigned higher ratings to the curved compared to the sharp-angled version of the paintings. Similarly, when participants were explicitly asked if they wanted to take the paintings home, they assigned higher wanting ratings to the curved version (study 2, task 3). However, when they were asked to act as a curator and select works they wanted for their gallery (study 2, task 4) and to make a physical effort to visually consume the painting (implicit wanting; study 2, task 1), no significant difference was found between the 3 sets of paintings. Finally, we found that explicit wanting decisions predicted liking for paintings, while implicit wanting and explicit liking predicted explicit wanting of the artworks in both the home and art contexts. This confirmed that it is possible to differentiate between liking and wanting responses to artistically relevant stimuli. We conclude that this theoretical distinction helps to explain previous conflicting results on the curvature effect, establishing a new line of research in the field of empirical aesthetics.

In the last two decades, contour shape has been widely studied as a factor in visual aesthetic preference. Many studies have shown that humans and other species usually prefer curved to sharp-angled contours. The reasons for this preference, although keenly debated, still remain unclear. Studies of preference for curvature have tended to rely on simple visual stimuli due to the need to control confounding variables, which has limited investigation of this effect in complex stimuli like artworks. Our objective in this study was to test whether the effect of preference for curvature can be extended to the art domain in an ecologically valid setting. We conducted two studies using original artworks exhibited in a museum context. Stimuli consisted of a series of 48 paintings divided into 16 sets with three versions in each set: one curved, one sharp-angled, and one mixed, while color, size and style were controlled for across each set. In both studies, we recorded participants’ preferred viewing distance and responses about liking and wanting the paintings. The results showed that participants looked at the curved paintings from a closer distance than the sharp-angled paintings, which we used as an implicit measure of approachability. Participants also liked and wanted the curved paintings significantly more than the sharp-angled paintings. We conclude that contour curvature is an important perceptual factor in people’s aesthetic judgements about artworks viewed in an ecologically valid setting.