Abstract
Can people track several pleasures? In everyday life, pleasing stimuli rarely appear in isolation. Yet, experiments on aesthetic pleasure usually present only one image at a time. Here, we ask whether people can reliably report the pleasure of either of two images seen in a single glimpse. Participants (N = 13 in the original; +25 in the preregistered replication) viewed 36 Open Affective Standardized Image Set (OASIS) images that span the entire range of pleasure and beauty. On each trial, the observer saw two images, side by side, for 200 ms. An arrow cue pointed, randomly, left, right, or bidirectionally. Left or right indicated which image (the target) to rate while ignoring the other (the distractor); bidirectional requested rating the combined pleasure of both images. In half the blocks, the cue came before the images (precuing). Otherwise, it came after (postcuing). Precuing allowed the observer to ignore the distractor, while postcuing demanded tracking both images. Finally, we obtained single-pleasure ratings for each image shown alone. Our replication confirms the original study. People have unbiased access to their felt pleasure from each image and the average of both. Furthermore, the variance of the observer’s report is similar whether reporting the pleasure of one image or the average pleasure of two. The undiminished variance for reports of the average pleasure of two images indicates either that the underlying pleasure variances are highly correlated, or, more likely, that the variance arises in the common reporting process. In brief, observers can faithfully track at least two visual pleasures.
Highlights
How often have you relied on online ratings to choose a restaurant? Such ratings typically provide a summary score and break down the rating into several dimensions
(2) When reporting the combined pleasure from both simultaneously presented images, observers could either (a) faithfully average the pleasures of both images or (b) reduce the weight of images with extreme pleasure values, or (c) make average pleasure ratings that are lower at the low end and higher at the high end than predicted based on the ratings for the images presented in isolation
All the main results of the original study with 13 observers were replicated with 25 observers
Summary
How often have you relied on online ratings to choose a restaurant? Such ratings typically provide a summary score and break down the rating into several dimensions. Several studies show that people can make unbiased reports of the average feature value for a set of items shown on a single display This is true for low-level visual features like orientation (e.g., Parkes et al, 2001), size (de Fockert & Marchant, 2008), position (Alvarez & Oliva, 2008), motion (e.g., Watamaniuk, 1993), and number (e.g., Burr & Ross, 2008) as well as high-level features such as facial identity (e.g., Neumann, Schweinberger, & Burton, 2013) and emotion (Fischer & Whitney, 2011; Haberman & Whitney, 2007). (2) When reporting the combined pleasure from both simultaneously presented images, observers could either (a) faithfully average the pleasures of both images (faithful) or (b) reduce the weight of images with extreme pleasure values (compressive), or (c) make average pleasure ratings that are lower at the low end and higher at the high end than predicted based on the ratings for the images presented in isolation (expansive) We here take a minimal approach and ask (1) Can observers faithfully retain knowledge of the pleasure of each of two simultaneously presented images? (2) Can observers faithfully report the average pleasure of two simultaneously presented images? Based on the literature, we consider three alternative models as a possible answer to each question. (1) When asked to report the pleasure of one of two simultaneous images, observers could either (a) faithfully report the pleasure of one image (faithful) or (b) always average pleasure across both presented images (compulsory averaging), or (c) partially bias their pleasure report toward the pleasure of the irrelevant image (partial compulsory averaging). (2) When reporting the combined pleasure from both simultaneously presented images, observers could either (a) faithfully average the pleasures of both images (faithful) or (b) reduce the weight of images with extreme pleasure values (compressive), or (c) make average pleasure ratings that are lower at the low end and higher at the high end than predicted based on the ratings for the images presented in isolation (expansive)
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