A cross-cultural comparison for preference for symmetry: Comparing British and Egyptians non-experts

Bode, Carole; Helmy, Mai; Bertamini, Marco

doi:10.2298/psi1703383b

Cited by 16 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Classic Islamic art has a greater emphasis on abstract geometry (Gonzalez, 2001), whereas classic Western art celebrates beauty in human faces and bodies. However, Soueif and Eysenck (1971) studied preferences for shape and found similar results in Britain and Egypt and this has been confirmed recently (Bode, Helmy, & Bertamini, 2017). Although analysis of just two populations will never be sufficient to support claims of universality, it does at least go some way to addressing the generalisability of our results.…”

Section: Scientific Aestheticssupporting

confidence: 73%

Visual cortex activation predicts visual preference: Evidence from Britain and Egypt

Makin

Helmy

Bertamini

2018

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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The term "Perceptual goodness" refers to the strength, obviousness, or salience of a visual configuration. Recent work has found strong agreement between theoretical, neural, and behavioural measures of perceptual goodness across a wide range of different symmetrical visual patterns. We used these pattern types again to explore the relationship between perceptual goodness and aesthetic preference. A group of 50 U.K. participants rated the patterns on a 0 to 100 scale. Preference ratings positively correlated with four overlapping measures of perceptual goodness. We then replicated this finding in Egypt, suggesting that our results reflect universal aspects of human preference. The third experiment provided consistent results with a different stimulus set. We conclude that symmetry is an aesthetic primitive that is attractive because of the way it is processed by the visual system.

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Section: Scientific Aestheticssupporting

confidence: 73%

Visual cortex activation predicts visual preference: Evidence from Britain and Egypt

Makin

Helmy

Bertamini

2018

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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“…However, the orientation of the mirror symmetry axis impacts the speed and ease of detection. While prior research has shown conflicting findings, the literature suggests that the axis orientation from the easiest to the most difficult ones to detect are as follows: vertical axis > horizontal axis > diagonal axis > other oblique axes (Bode et al, 2017;Pecchinenda et al, 2014;Wagemans, 1997). It must be noted that perfect mirror symmetry is rare in real worldyet, the process of symmetry detection in humans is incredibly robust and noise-resistant (Treder, 2010;Wagemans, 1997).…”

Section: Consumer Liking and Symmetrymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Preference for symmetry is inherent and strong (Creusen et al, 2010;Tinio and Leder, 2009), and holds for both actual objects and abstract stimuli (Shepherd and Bar, 2011). Symmetry in images should positively affect viewers' preference, pleasure, or liking (Bode et al, 2017;Reber et al, 2004a;Redies et al, 2020). In marketing, mirror symmetry in brand logos has been shown to positively influence consumer liking and interest (Henderson and Cote, 1998;van der Lans et al, 2009).…”

Section: Consumer Liking and Symmetrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Perfect social media image posts: symmetry and contrast influence consumer response

Kostyk

Huhmann

2021

EJM

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Purpose Two studies investigate how different structural properties of images – symmetry (vertical and horizontal) and image contrast – affect social media marketing outcomes of consumer liking and engagement. Design/methodology/approach In Study 1’s experiment, 361 participants responded to social media marketing images that varied in vertical or horizontal symmetry and level of image contrast. Study 2 analyzes field data on 610 Instagram posts. Findings Study 1 demonstrates that vertical or horizontal symmetry and high image contrast increase consumer liking of social media marketing images, and that processing fluency and aesthetic response mediate these relationships. Study 2 reveals that symmetry and high image contrast improve consumer engagement on social media (number of “likes” and comments). Research limitations/implications These studies extend theory regarding processing fluency’s and aesthetic response’s roles in consumer outcomes within social media marketing. Image posts’ structural properties affect processing fluency and aesthetic response without altering brand information or advertising content. Practical implications Because consumer liking of marketing communications (e.g. social media posts) predicts persuasion and sales, results should help marketers design more effective posts and achieve brand-building and behavioral objectives. Based on the results, marketers are urged to consider the processing fluency and aesthetic response associated with any image developed for social media marketing. Originality/value Addressing the lack of empirical investigations in the existing literature, the reported studies demonstrate that effects of symmetry and image contrast in generating liking are driven by processing fluency and aesthetic response. Additionally, these studies establish novel effects of images’ structural properties on consumer engagement with brand-based social media marketing communications.

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“…Scientists and artists have claimed that symmetry is a fundamental and universal principle of esthetics, to which the human brain is particularly sensitive (for a review, see Bode et al, 2017). To measure symmetry, we used filter responses from the first layer of a convolutional neural network (CNN) that closely match responses of neurons in the visual cortex of higher mammals (Brachmann and Redies, 2016).…”

Section: Symmetrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Image Properties Predict Ratings of Affective Pictures

et al. 2020

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Affective pictures are widely used in studies of human emotions. The objects or scenes shown in affective pictures play a pivotal role in eliciting particular emotions. However, affective processing can also be mediated by low-level perceptual features, such as local brightness contrast, color or the spatial frequency profile. In the present study, we asked whether image properties that reflect global image structure and image composition affect the rating of affective pictures. We focused on 13 global image properties that were previously associated with the esthetic evaluation of visual stimuli, and determined their predictive power for the ratings of five affective picture datasets (IAPS, GAPED, NAPS, DIRTI, and OASIS). First, we used an SVM-RBF classifier to predict high and low ratings for valence and arousal, respectively, and achieved a classification accuracy of 58-76% in this binary decision task. Second, a multiple linear regression analysis revealed that the individual image properties account for between 6 and 20% of the variance in the subjective ratings for valence and arousal. The predictive power of the image properties varies for the different datasets and type of ratings. Ratings tend to share similar sets of predictors if they correlate positively with each other. In conclusion, we obtained evidence from non-linear and linear analyses that affective pictures evoke emotions not only by what they show, but they also differ by how they show it. Whether the human visual system actually uses these perceptive cues for emotional processing remains to be investigated.

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A cross-cultural comparison for preference for symmetry: Comparing British and Egyptians non-experts

Cited by 16 publications

References 42 publications

Visual cortex activation predicts visual preference: Evidence from Britain and Egypt

Visual cortex activation predicts visual preference: Evidence from Britain and Egypt

Perfect social media image posts: symmetry and contrast influence consumer response

Global Image Properties Predict Ratings of Affective Pictures

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