Joanna Ward

• BSc (Hons) Pyschology
• Exploring the effects of aesthetic visual properties on rapid visual shape classification

Previous research found that some visual features of objects are more aesthetically pleasing than others (i.e. symmetric shapes are often rated as more attractive than asymmetric shapes). However, these studies have not investigated whether we process aesthetically pleasing stimuli faster or slower than those that are not. In this project participants completed aesthetic rating and speeded discrimination tasks using stimuli with different combinations of symmetry, edge type and height-to-width ratio. Our results show that aesthetics do not influence processing speed and people are more sensitive to changes in stimuli if they have the height-to-width ratio of 1.6 (the golden ratio).

Funding source: Newcastle University