Aesthetics and Psychological Effects of Fractal Based Design

Abstract

Highly prevalent in nature, fractal patterns possess self-similar components that repeat at varying size scales. The perceptual experience of human-made environments can be impacted with inclusion of these natural patterns. Previous work has demonstrated consistent trends in preference for and complexity estimates of fractal patterns. However, limited information has been gathered on the impact of other visual judgments. Here we examine the aesthetic and perceptual experience of fractal ‘global-forest’ designs already installed in humanmade spaces and demonstrate how fractal pattern components are associated with positive psychological experiences that can be utilized to promote occupant wellbeing. These designs are composite fractal patterns consisting of individual fractal ‘tree-seeds’ which combine to create a ‘global fractal forest.’ The local ‘tree-seed’ patterns, global configuration of tree-seed locations, and overall resulting ‘global-forest’ patterns have fractal qualities. These designs span multiple mediums yet are all intended to lower occupant stress without detracting from the function and overall design of the space. In this series of studies, we first establish divergent relationships between various visual attributes, with pattern complexity, preference, and engagement ratings increasing with fractal complexity compared to ratings of refreshment and relaxation which stay the same or decrease with complexity. Subsequently, we determine that the local constituent fractal (‘tree-seed’) patterns contribute to the perception of the overall fractal design, and address how to balance aesthetic and psychological effects (such as individual experiences of perceived engagement and relaxation) in fractal design installations. This set of studies demonstrates that fractal preference is driven by a balance between increased arousal (desire for engagement and complexity) and decreased tension (desire for relaxation or refreshment). Installations of these composite mid-high complexity ‘global-forest’ patterns consisting of ‘tree-seed’ components balance these contrasting needs, and can serve as a practical implementation of biophilic patterns in human-made environments to promote occupant wellbeing.

Customer Evaluation of New Product in Tourism: Forest Bathing

“…Forest environment (Shinrin-yoku / forest bathing) reduces stress the study group led by Qing Li investigated the effect of Shinrin-yoku on the human immune system and confirmed that being in nature, where nature is rich in phytoncides, increases the number of NK cells that kill tumour cells. Being in nature is beneficial because of the negative ions found in nature, that provide energy and clearness of mind (Li 2019), as well as because of the natural patterns called fractals, which reduce mental fatigue and stress, while the lack of natural fractals in daily life can cause headaches (Robles, 2021).…”

Preference for curvature in paintings extends to museum context.

“…Leder and Nadal (2014) indicated that some aesthetic experiences are explained by the perceptual features of the stimuli. Several perceptual attributes, related to low-level (e.g., contrast, color, and fractal pattern) or mid-level (e.g., symmetry and complexity) features, have been shown to affect judgments of preference both in artworks and stimuli in general (Grebenkina et al, 2018; Nadal et al, 2010; Robles et al, 2021; Stanischewski et al, 2020). People tend to prefer one stimulus to another when a perceptual attribute is modified (Braun & Doerschner, 2019; Nakauchi et al, 2022; Pecchinenda et al, 2014).…”

Bringing nature indoors: characterizing the unique contribution of fractal structure and the effects of Euclidean context on perception of fractal patterns

“…To account for possible effects of participant subgroups driving the overall observed trends, a two-step cluster analysis was performed (see Robles et al, 2021). In accordance with and described in Norušis (2012) hierarchical cluster analyses were first completed using Ward's method to separate individuals into groups using their appeal ratings for each level of pattern complexity.…”

“…Objective pattern complexity results from variations in the relative coarse-to-fine pattern structure determined by internal pattern factors such as variations in recursion (number of repetitions across scales) and complexity of fractal dimension "D-value" (the rate of pattern shrinkage between repetitions to quantify the ratio of fine structure). Perceived pattern complexity also constrains broader pattern judgments (Abboushi et al, 2019;Robles et al, 2021). Selection of optimal fractal features expands beyond observed improvements to esthetic experiences of a given object, to facilitate viewer cognition and performance on a wide span of tasks (Juliani et al, 2016;Taylor et al, 2018;Abboushi et al, 2019;Roe et al, 2020;Spehar and Stevanov, 2021).…”

“…The current study investigates the influence of pattern structure on observer experiences, specifically how internal composition (with the presence or absence of fractal organization) and external context (with the presence or absence of surrounding Euclidean configuration) alter well-established trends in fractal perception (Abboushi et al, 2019;Robles et al, 2021). In the first ever study to compare ratings of fractal images to corresponding statistically matched nonfractal patterns, unipolar ratings are collected across a broad range of experiential measurements to isolate the impact of fractal structure on predictable viewer experience.…”