Can you compare the beauty of the Mona Lisa to Starry Night? Would your beauty ratings of single images predict your rating of their relative beauty? Twenty-five participants were tested with 14 OASIS images and 6 self-selected images. There were 2 tasks. In the relative task, each participant saw all possible two-image pairs twice, chose which image was more beautiful and rated by how much on a 1–9 scale. In the absolute task, they saw all 20 images randomly presented one by one 4 times and rated how much beauty they felt from each, 1–9. We find that the participants made consistent absolute and relative beauty judgments (absolute: test-retest r = 0.98, σ 2 = 0.29; relative: test-retest r = 0.84, σ2 = 1.37). We used absolute beauty ratings to predict relative beauty ratings by subtracting one image’s absolute beauty rating from the other’s. This simple model precisely predicts mean beauty difference ratings (r = 0.79) and 80% of the choices. Thus, the mean beauty difference ratings are predicted by mean absolute beauty ratings. But the variance in our data is 2.4 times as large as predicted by our model, suggesting a noisy comparison process.
Reward modulates behavioral choices and biases goal-oriented behavior, such as eye or hand movements, toward locations or stimuli associated with higher rewards. We investigated reward effects on the accuracy and timing of smooth pursuit eye movements in 4 experiments. Eye movements were recorded in participants tracking a moving visual target on a computer monitor. Before target motion onset, a monetary reward cue indicated whether participants could earn money by tracking accurately, or whether the trial was unrewarded (Experiments 1 and 2, n = 11 each). Reward significantly improved eye-movement accuracy across different levels of task difficulty. Improvements were seen even in the earliest phase of the eye movement, within 70 ms of tracking onset, indicating that reward impacts visual-motor processing at an early level. We obtained similar findings when reward was not precued but explicitly associated with the pursuit target (Experiment 3, n = 16); critically, these results were not driven by stimulus prevalence or other factors such as preparation or motivation. Numerical cues (Experiment 4, n = 9) were not effective.
Observers can make independent aesthetic judgments of at least two images presented briefly and simultaneously. However, it is unknown whether this is the case for two stimuli of different sensory modalities. Here, we investigated whether individuals can judge auditory and visual stimuli independently, and whether stimulus duration influences such judgments. Participants (
Aesthetic experience with static visual art engages visual, reward and default-mode (DMN) networks, yet very little is known about the temporal dynamics of these networks during aesthetic appreciation. Previous behavioral and brain imaging research suggests that critical aspects of aesthetic experience have slow dynamics, taking more than a few seconds, making them amenable to study with fMRI. Here, we identified key aspects of the dynamics of aesthetic experience while viewing art for various durations (1, 5 or 15 s). Thirty observers continuously rated the pleasure they experienced both during image presentation and during a 14 s post-stimulus period, followed by an overall judgment of an image's aesthetic appeal. Overall judgments were used to sort trials into high, medium, and low aesthetic appeal. In the first few seconds following image onset, activity in the DMN (and high-level visual and reward regions) was greater for high appeal images; in the DMN this activity counteracted a suppressive effect that grew longer and deeper with increasing image duration. In addition, for high appeal art, the DMN response returned to baseline in a manner time-locked to image offset. Conversely, for non- appealing art, the timing of this return to baseline was inconsistent. This differential response in the DMN may therefore reflect the internal dynamics of the observer's state: the observer disengages from art-related processing and returns to stimulus-independent thought in a manner that is dependent on subjective aesthetic appeal. These dynamics suggest that the DMN tracks the internal state of an observer during aesthetic experience. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2018
In museums and art galleries, visitors become less engaged per object over time. This study, comprising a pre-study (N = 31) and a main study (N = 73) in both laboratory and online settings, explores habituation as a potential cause. The primary aim is to reveal the underlying mechanism and propose strategies for its mitigation. Two research questions were set: (1) Is habituation one of the mechanisms behind the decline in engagement? (2) Can inducing novelty into the presented stimulus sequence counteract this decline? In our experiments, we prepared two sequences of art presentations. In one sequence, artworks were presented in sequential blocks by art category, introducing novelty when a shift between blocks occurred. In the other sequence, different categories were presented successively, introducing novelty within blocks. Each sequence was set as the BC (high between-novelty condition) and the WC (high within-novelty condition). Participants were randomly assigned to either one of the conditions. Participants’ engagement level was evaluated via viewing time for each stimulus. We found (1) no evidence for habituation as an underlying mechanism and (2) a mixed impact of introducing novelty between the two studies. Limitations and future directions are discussed.
Gender categorization seems prone to a pervasive bias: Persons about whom null or ambiguous gender information is available are more often considered male than female. Our study assessed whether such a male-bias is present in non-binary choice tasks and whether it can be altered by social contextual information. Participants were asked to report their perception of an adult figure's gender in three context conditions: (1) alone, (2) passively besides a child, or (3) actively helping a child (n = 10 pictures each). The response options male, female and I don't know were provided. As a result, participants attributed male gender to most figures and rarely used the I don't know option in all conditions, but were more likely to attribute female gender to the same adult figure if it was shown with a child. If such social contextual information was provided in the first rather than the second block of the experiment, subsequent female gender attributions increased for adult figures shown alone. Additionally, female gender attributions for actively helping relative to passive adults were made more often. Thus, we provide strong evidence that gender categorization can be altered by social context even if the subject of gender categorization remains identical.
Peoples strong tendency to assign male gender to neutrally described persons has been termed the people = male bias. We aimed to assess whether this effect can be elicited using amorphous visual stimuli instead of verbal descriptions and whether it is already evident in childhood. We presented 53 children (4 to 12 yrs., 27 boys) with black-and-white amorphous drawings of humans and asked them whether the adult depicted was a man or a woman. The option to choose "I dont know" was also provided. In order to assess whether social contexts influenced childrens gender attributions (as has been previously reported for adults) we placed the same amorphous humans in three different contexts: 1) the adult was depicted alone, 2) the adult was passively involved in a social situation with a child and 3) the adult was actively helping a child. Children showed a clear tendency to assign male gender to the amorphous adults across all context variations; this was equally true for boys and for girls. However, when the adult was shown in a social context the proportion of male gender attributions was lower compared to the condition without social context. The older the children were, the more likely they were to attribute female gender to a higher proportion of amorphous figures across all contexts. Median response times were higher for "female" ratings, indicating that this decision was associated with greater cognitive effort. Our results show that a strong bias towards attributing male gender to visually presented amorphous figures is evident already in childhood and that it somewhat decreases with age. For children, just as it has been demonstrated for adults, social contexts lead to a larger proportion of female gender attributions. These results encourage future research to include developmental aspects for explaining the mechanisms underlying gender perception and stereotypes. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2014
The complexity of images critically influences our assessment of their beauty. However, studies relating assessments of complexity and beauty to potential objective measures are hampered by the use of hand-crafted stimuli which are hard to reproduce and manipulate. To tackle this, we developed a systematic method for generating 2D black-and-white pixel patterns using cellular automata, and collected ratings of complexity and beauty from 80 participants. We developed various computational measures of pattern quantification such as density, entropies, local spatial complexity, Kolmogorov complexity, and asymmetries. We also introduced an “intricacy” measure quantifying the number of components in a pattern using a graph-based approach. We related these objective measures with participant judgements of complexity and beauty to find that a weighted combination of local spatial complexity and intricacy was an effective predictor (R2test = 0.47) of complexity. This implies that people’s complexity ratings depended on the local arrangement of pixels along with the global number of components in the pattern. Furthermore, we found a positive linear influence of complexity ratings on beauty, with a negative linear influence of disorder (asymmetry and entropy), and a negative interaction between the two quantities (R2test = 0.65). This implies that there is beauty in complexity as long as there is sufficient order. Lastly, a moderated mediation analysis showed that subjective complexity mediates the influence of objective complexity on beauty, implying that subjective complexity provides useful information over and above objective complexity. Our data and scripts are available on Github.
