Abstract
Human experience surrounding the appreciation of beauty is not static. Many factors such as script direction and cultural differences directly impact whether, how and why we consider images beautiful. In an earlier study, Pérez González showed that 19th-century Iranian and Spanish professional photographers manifest lateral biases linked to reading writing direction in their compositions. The present paper aims to provide a general review on this topic and intends to highlight the most relevant studies reporting preferences in the appreciation of beauty in individuals with different reading and writing directions and belonging to different cultural backgrounds.
Highlights
Beauty and the experience of the aesthetic are subjective and hard to define, as are their relationship to symmetry
We can see the perception of a thing as pleasing based on the emotional responses of the viewer
This review investigates the academic material on asymmetry in aesthetic appreciation
Summary
Beauty and the experience of the aesthetic are subjective and hard to define, as are their relationship to symmetry. There is a range of studies suggesting that the lateral directionality of an image can influence the degree to which it is preferred (Levy, 1976; Beaumont, 1985; Christman and Pinger, 1997; Nachson et al, 1999; Chokron and De Agostini, 2000; Heath et al, 2005; Ishii et al, 2011). In a way, this places our work within the broader field of human universality. To what extent are our aesthetic standards innate to all people, and to what extent are they acquired expressions of cultural variation?
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