Children's Preference for Complexity as a Function of Perceived Units in Collative Motivation

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to manipulate a constant number of four elements (red and blue rectangles) to represent differentially perceived units of complexity. The hypothesis that motivational arousal and choice preferences of second- and fifth-grade children would be a positive function of the number of perceived units, ranging from one to four, was confirmed, consistent with Berlyne's (1960) theory. When the number of elements was held constant at three, as compared to four, similar results were obtained in a test at two intermediate levels of complexity. Implications for organization of elements and the effects of symmetry in determining children's preferences for levels of complexity are discussed.

Judgments of Creativity as a Function of Visual Stimulus Variability

“…Stimuli examined in these studies most often involve famous paintings, but other stimuli have included systematically created paintings (e.g., Avital & Cupchik, 1998) and artificial stimuli created according to simple rules (e.g., Alberti & Witryol, 2001;Jacobsen, 2004). Stimuli with greater complexity are often judged as more aesthetically pleasing.…”

“…There is also an extensive body of research on the judgment of aesthetics and its relation to collative properties like stimulus complexity and uncertainty (e.g., Alberti & Witryol, 2001;Avital & Cupchik, 1998;Berlyne, 1960;Cupchik & Berlyne, 1979;Locher, 1995). Stimuli examined in these studies most often involve famous paintings, but other stimuli have included systematically created paintings (e.g., Avital & Cupchik, 1998) and artificial stimuli created according to simple rules (e.g., Alberti & Witryol, 2001;Jacobsen, 2004). Stimuli with greater complexity are often judged as more aesthetically pleasing.…”