Studying aesthetics with the method of production: Effects of context and local symmetry.

Abstract

We investigated the role of local and global context on visual patterns produced by normal participants, examining the effects of both top-down context (framing) and bottom-up content (element-internal symmetry) in a computer-based experimental framework. In the first study, we allowed participants to generate rectangles of arbitrary proportions and found an effect of framing on width-to-height ratios of rectangles produced, demonstrating the importance of taking visual framing into account when discussing hunman shape preferences. In a second study, using FlexTiles, an interactive pattern-generation framework, we showed that the patterns humans produce are influenced by local symmetrical properties of pattem elements. Participants also had to indicate preferences between pairs of pattem variants. We found that in some cases, pattem preferences and pattem production lead to different results. We conclude that visual context, either in the form of visual framing or local symmetries, changes aesthetic patterns that humans produce and prefer in predictable ways. These differences between the productive and perceptual preferences highlight the importance of using multiple methods when studying the human aesthetic sense.

Computational and Experimental Approaches to Visual Aesthetics

“…A particularly well-known example is the perception of attractiveness of human faces (Grammer and Thornhill, 1994 ). In simple geometrical (graphic) and ornamental patterns, symmetry was shown to have a high correlation with aesthetic judgements (Jacobsen and Höfel, 2002 ; Westphal-Fitch et al, 2013 ; Rampone et al, 2016 ; al Rifaie et al, 2017 ). However, the role of symmetry in photography and artworks seems less clear.…”

The Experience of Art in Museums

“…First, theoretical frameworks, such as Locher, Overbeeke, and Wensveen’s (2010) model of aesthetic interaction or Leder, Belke, Oeberst, and Augustin's (2004) model of art appreciation, place the whole process within a specific physical context, such as a laboratory, a gallery, and so on. Second, a number of laboratory studies have recently found that even verbal and semantic contextual framing influence psychological and neural processes involved in the appreciation of art (Gartus & Leder, 2014; Kirk, Skov, Hulme, Christensen, & Zeki, 2009; Noguchi & Murota, 2013; Swami, 2013; Westphal-Fitch, Oh, & Fitch, 2013). Third, even when the physical context and format in which artworks are presented does not greatly affect the way people value their pictorial features (such as complexity, symmetry, or balance) genuine artworks viewed in the museum are experienced as more interesting and pleasant than their reproductions (Locher, Smith, & Smith, 1999, 2001).…”

Errors in the making and perception of art images of human gait: Psychological explanations.

“…Perkins (1932) also obtained a move toward greater symmetry and discovered that the changes were progressive: 50 days after the drawings were shown, close to half of the participants produced perfectly or nearly perfectly symmetrical drawings from memory. Contemporary research still finds an affinity for ordered, structured, and symmetrical patterns and has provided novel insights into this phenomenon (e.g., Locher & Nodine, 1987; Tyler, 2002; Westphal-Fitch, Oh, & Fitch, 2013).…”