Aesthetic Preference in Adolescents as a Function of Race and Visual Complexity

Abstract

Experimental aesthetics is a fascinating field. Why do some people like all minimal art? Why do some people feel negative about a Pollack painting? In the field of experimental and empirical aesthetics, the relationship of psychological responses of preference, ratings of pleasingness, interestingness, and so on to the physical attributes of stimuli has recently received considerable attentionl'23 ,4.5, One of the major stimulus variables investigated has been complexity of the visual stimulus. The metrics of complexity have been approached generally from one of two strategies. The first utilizes some form of stimulus in which complexity may be stated in a relatively objective manner, e.g., random monochromatic polygons equal in area but with variations in the number of sides or points. Complexity is stated in terms of the number of sides. Another approach is to use real paintings subjectively scaled for complexity by raters. The first method clearly is more objective and quantifiable than the second. Some investigations utilizing polygons as stimuli have tended to report a curvilinear relationship of complexity to preference. That is, subjects preferred intermediate rather than high or low levels of complexity. However, the situation here is confused, as some studies have failed to obtain this relationship, and in fact some of these have found a linear relationship in a positive direction, others in a negative direction. A major factor that would seem to differentiate many of the studies is the nature of the subjects tested. It is possible that the direction of the functional relationship of complexity to preference is strongly moderated by subject characteristics. One important subject characteristic that may qualify here is the person's characteristic arousal level in learning and testing situations. That is, whether he may generally be classed as high, low, or at middle levels of physiological activation or arousal. Farley6 has argued that such a notion of characteristic levels of arousal is a meaningful and useful one in accounting for certain aspects of learning and memory and has important implications for adapting instruction to individual differences. It has been argued by Berlyne7 and others that variations in visual complexity may alter a person's arousal level. High visual complexity is held to be more arousing physiologically than low visual complexity. A related construct is that individuals generally prefer to function at middle levels of arousal as this position where arousal is concerned seems particularly efficacious for optimal learning and performance. Thus it would be expected that individuals characteristically low in physiological arousal would seek or prefer stimuli that would help them raise their arousal level to an intermediate point. On the other hand, individuals who are characteristically high in physiological arousal in a learning or test situation would seek or prefer stimuli that would facilitate the reduction of their arousal levels to an intermediate point. If the foregoing assumption is made, and taken in conjunction with the putative arousing properties of visual complexity, then it can be predicted that persons characteristically low in physiological arousal will prefer or like complex (that is, high arousal) visual stimuli in comparison to persons characteristically high in physiological arousal, who would be expected to prefer or like simple (that is, low arousal) visual stimuli. Putting the above