Visual cortex activation predicts visual preference: Evidence from Britain and Egypt

Makin, ADJ ORCID: 0000-0002-4490-7400, Helmy, M and Bertamini, M ORCID: 0000-0001-8617-6864 (2018) Visual cortex activation predicts visual preference: Evidence from Britain and Egypt. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 71 (8). pp. 1771-1780.

Text Visual cortex activation predicts visual preference evidence from Britain and Egypt-1.pdf - Author Accepted Manuscript Download (1MB)

Abstract

The term 'Perceptual goodness' refers to the strength, obviousness or salience of a visual configuration. Recent work has found strong agreement between theoretical, neural and behavioural measures of perceptual goodness across a wide range of different symmetrical visual patterns (Makin et al. 2016). We used these pattern types again to explore the relationship between perceptual goodness and aesthetic preference. A group of 50 UK participants rated the patterns on a 0-100 scale. Preference ratings positively correlated with four overlapping measures of perceptual goodness. We then replicated this finding in Egypt, suggesting that our results reflect universal aspects of human preference. The third experiment provided consistent results with a different stimulus set. We conclude that symmetry is an aesthetic primitive that is attractive because of the way it is processed by the visual system.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Aesthetics, holographic model, perceptual goodness, sustained posterior negativity, symmetry
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	28 Jul 2017 15:16
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2023 06:58
DOI:	10.1080/17470218.2017.1350870
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3008686