Abstract
Symmetry is a basic geometry property that affects people’s aesthetic experience in common ways across cultures and historical periods, but the origins of the universal preference for symmetrical patterns is not clear. We assessed four-year-old children’s and adults’ reported aesthetic preferences between symmetrical and asymmetrical visual patterns, as well as their spontaneous attentional preferences between the patterns. We found a striking dissociation between these two measures in the children: Children looked longer at the symmetrical patterns, relative to otherwise similar but asymmetrical patterns, but they showed no explicit preference for those patterns. These findings suggest that the human’s aesthetic preferences have high postnatal plasticity, calling into question theories that symmetry is a “core feature” mediating people’s aesthetic experience throughout life. The findings also call into question the assumption, common to many studies of human infants, that attentional choices reflect subjective preferences or values.
Highlights
People have a universal aesthetic preference for symmetry
With functional magnetic resonance imaging, Sasaki and colleagues found that symmetrical visual patterns elicited more activation in the visual cortex[18]
While Bornstein et al reported more efficient recognition of vertically symmetrical patterns by 4-month-old infants, they found that only 12-month-old infants show an attentional preference for vertical symmetry compared to horizontal symmetry or asymmetry, as indicated by longer looking times[20]
Summary
People have a universal aesthetic preference for symmetry. Symmetry preferences are manifest in diverse aesthetic forms, from painting and sculpture to architecture and music[1,2,3]. We tested both adults and four-year-old children’s explicit aesthetic preferences between vertically symmetric and asymmetric visual patterns, while using eye-tracking to record their attention to these patterns.
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