Aesthetic Judgments of Novel Graphic Patterns: Analyses of Individual Judgments

Jacobsen, Thomas; Höfel, Lea

doi:10.2466/pms.2002.95.3.755

Cited by 214 publications

(285 citation statements)

References 6 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

268

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…and there may be various symmetrical axes but this does not make the property of "being symmetrical" qualitatively gradable. On the other hand, studies on aesthetic judgments of symmetry can assess and measure to what extent people appreciate a particular shape or configuration (e.g., [82][83][84][85]) and this goes to show that symmetrical patterns can be graded from a qualitative point of view based on the observer's assessment of pleasantness. The studies presented in this paper, however, take a different approach.…”

Section: Potential Impact and Limitations Of The Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Opposition and Identicalness: Two Basic Components of Adults’ Perception and Mental Representation of Symmetry

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Symmetry is a salient aspect of biological and man-made objects, and has a central role in perceptual organization. Two studies investigate the role of opposition and identicalness in shaping adults' naïve idea of "symmetry". In study 1, both verbal descriptions of symmetry (either provided by the participants or selected from among alternatives presented by the experimenter) and configurations drawn as exemplars of symmetry were studied. In study 2, a pair comparison task was used. Both studies focus on configurations formed by two symmetrical shapes (i.e., between-objects symmetry). Three main results emerged. The explicit description of symmetry provided by participants generally referred to features relating to the relationship perceived between the two shapes and not to geometrical point-by-point transformations. Despite the fact that people tended to avoid references to opposition in their verbal definition of symmetry in study 1, the drawings that they did to represent their prototypical idea of symmetry manifested opposition as a basic component. This latter result was confirmed when the participants were asked to select the definition (in study 1) or the configuration (in study 2) that best fitted with their idea of symmetry. In conclusion, identicalness is an important component in people's naïve idea of symmetry, but it does not suffice: opposition complements it.

show abstract

Section: Potential Impact and Limitations Of The Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Opposition and Identicalness: Two Basic Components of Adults’ Perception and Mental Representation of Symmetry

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A preference for symmetry is well documented both in humans (Cardenas & Harris, 2006;Eisenman, 1967;Eysenk, 1941;Frith & Nias, 1974;Jacobsen & Höfel, 2002) and in many other species, from honeybees to chicks (Clara, Regolin, & Vallortigara, 2007;Wignall, Heiling, Cheng, & Herberstein, 2006). Symmetry has also been mentioned as a possible fundamental principle of aesthetics (Ramachandran & Hirstein, 1999) and a potential aesthetic primitive (Latto, 1995).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Eisenman, 1967;Frith & Nias, 1974;Jacobsen & Höfel, 2002); however, recent work has started to employ implicit measures. Makin, Pecchinenda, and Bertamini (2012a) used the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998;Nosek, Greenwald, & Banaji, 2007) to explore implicit preference for symmetry.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implicit Association of Symmetry with Positive Valence, High Arousal and Simplicity

2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Symmetrical visual patterns are preferred to random patterns. Studies using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) have shown that symmetry is associated with positive valence words (e.g. love), and random with negative valence words (e.g. hate). Valence is an important aspect of emotion, but equally interesting is the relationship between the symmetry-random dimension and the dimensions of arousal and complexity. Possible links have long been discussed but empirical evidence is limited. Using a series of four IAT experiments, we report that participants implicitly associate symmetrical patterns with words high in arousal, and random patterns with low arousal. We also found that symmetrical patterns were associated with simple mathematic expressions, while random patterns were associated with complex expressions. No link was found for another aspect of mathematical complexity (smaller or larger numbers). This pattern of results shows that aesthetic responses to symmetry involve both positive valence and high arousal and that these emotional responses arise from the perceptual simplicity of symmetry, in line with the fluency account of aesthetics.

show abstract

“…Symmetry directly determines aesthetic preferences and the subjectively perceived beauty of two-dimensional visual images and patterns [36][37][38][39][40][41], and symmetrical visual patterns are also more easily remembered and recognized [42][43][44] compared with asymmetrical ones. Sabatelli et al [8] suggested that natural and artistic creative processes rely on common, possibly fractal transformations.…”

Section: Nature-inspired Design and The Symmetry Of "Things In A Thing"mentioning

confidence: 99%

Affine Geometry, Visual Sensation, and Preference for Symmetry of Things in a Thing

Dresp-Langley

2016

Symmetry

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Evolution and geometry generate complexity in similar ways. Evolution drives natural selection while geometry may capture the logic of this selection and express it visually, in terms of specific generic properties representing some kind of advantage. Geometry is ideally suited for expressing the logic of evolutionary selection for symmetry, which is found in the shape curves of vein systems and other natural objects such as leaves, cell membranes, or tunnel systems built by ants. The topology and geometry of symmetry is controlled by numerical parameters, which act in analogy with a biological organism's DNA. The introductory part of this paper reviews findings from experiments illustrating the critical role of two-dimensional (2D) design parameters, affine geometry and shape symmetry for visual or tactile shape sensation and perception-based decision making in populations of experts and non-experts. It will be shown that 2D fractal symmetry, referred to herein as the "symmetry of things in a thing", results from principles very similar to those of affine projection. Results from experiments on aesthetic and visual preference judgments in response to 2D fractal trees with varying degrees of asymmetry are presented. In a first experiment (psychophysical scaling procedure), non-expert observers had to rate (on a scale from 0 to 10) the perceived beauty of a random series of 2D fractal trees with varying degrees of fractal symmetry. In a second experiment (two-alternative forced choice procedure), they had to express their preference for one of two shapes from the series. The shape pairs were presented successively in random order. Results show that the smallest possible fractal deviation from "symmetry of things in a thing" significantly reduces the perceived attractiveness of such shapes. The potential of future studies where different levels of complexity of fractal patterns are weighed against different degrees of symmetry is pointed out in the conclusion.

show abstract

Aesthetic Judgments of Novel Graphic Patterns: Analyses of Individual Judgments

Cited by 214 publications

References 6 publications

Opposition and Identicalness: Two Basic Components of Adults’ Perception and Mental Representation of Symmetry

Opposition and Identicalness: Two Basic Components of Adults’ Perception and Mental Representation of Symmetry

Implicit Association of Symmetry with Positive Valence, High Arousal and Simplicity

Affine Geometry, Visual Sensation, and Preference for Symmetry of Things in a Thing

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About