Abstract
This study set out to investigate whether and how aesthetic evaluations of different types of symmetric, as well as abstract vs. representational patterns are modulated by art expertise. To this end, we utilized abstract asymmetric, symmetric, and “broken” patterns slightly deviating from symmetry, as well as more representational patterns resembling faces (also symmetric or broken). While it has already been shown that symmetry preference decreases with art expertise, it was still unclear whether an already established relationship between art expertise and preference for abstract over representational art can be similarly found as a preference for abstract over representational patterns, as these are non-art objects. Nevertheless, we found profound differences in aesthetic preferences between art experts and laypersons. While art experts rated asymmetric patterns higher than laypersons, as expected, they rated face-like patterns lower than laypersons. Also, laypersons rated all other types of patterns higher than asymmetric patterns, while art experts rated the other patterns similar or lower than asymmetric patterns. We found this both for liking and for interest ratings. As no differences between art experts and laypersons were found regarding memory recognition of new and old patterns, this effect is not likely due to differences in memory performance. In sum, this study further extends our knowledge about the influence of art expertise on aesthetic appreciation.
Highlights
Symmetry is an important—if not the most important—predictor of aesthetic evaluation for many types of images
We investigated aesthetic evaluation and memory recognition for different abstract black-and-white patterns in art experts and laypersons
The motivation for this research is rooted in cognitive theories of empirical aesthetics assuming that aesthetic processing differs between art experts and laypersons [5,6,65]
Summary
Symmetry is an important—if not the most important—predictor of aesthetic evaluation for many types of images. It can be found everywhere [1,2,3] and it is often considered to be relevant for the beauty of an object [4,5,6,7,8,9]. Symmetry has a rather low standing in art, where it is considered to be at best one of many other factors influencing aesthetic evaluation. Symmetry is clearly especially relevant for the aesthetics of abstract patterns [7,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31] and human faces [32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39]
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