Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

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Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Aesthetics--Psychological aspects; Human information processing; Preferences (Philosophy); Academic theses;

Abstract

How do we discern beauty? The question has been debated by competing theorists throughout the years. Recently, Reber, Schwarz, and Winkielman (2004) have proposed that beauty is a function of an individual's processing fluency. In other words, the more easily one first processes an image the more beautiful it is judged to be. The current research aimed to tests this hypothesis using selected works of fine art. Using self-reports, responses to altered and unaltered images were recorded. Images were either left intact or altered in order to reduce or increase their symmetry or figure-ground contrast-two elements considered to be hallmarks of beauty and superior processing fluency. Results provide support for the hypothesis that unaltered images receive higher preference ratings than images altered to reduce processing fluency. Images altered to increase processing fluency did not receive significantly higher preference ratings than unaltered images. These results provide support for Reber, Schwarz, and Winkielman's processing fluency hypothesis by extending their work into the realm of fine art.

Year of Submission

2006

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Psychology

First Advisor

Kim MacLin

Second Advisor

Otto MacLin

Third Advisor

Mary Losch

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

2006

Object Description

1 PDF file (61 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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