What is Beauty?

• • the human condition
  • we experience a rendition of the outside world
  • e.g spinning girl illusion
  • shows that people perceive differently
  • your experience of the world is unique due to cognitive processes
• • Cannon-Baird theory
  • physiological and emotional states are simultaneous and independent
  • e.g vampire jumps out
  • scared and heart beats faster
  • all happen at the same time
• • James-Lange theory
  • emotional state inferred from physiological cues
  • e.g vampire jumps out
  • heart beats faster so you feel scared
  • scared happens because of the increased heart rate
• • Dutton and Aron 1974
  • took place in Canadian national park
  • stressful
  • swaying wobbly wooden board suspension bridge
  • calm
  • safe bridge over a little river
  • female RA stopped men who just crossed the stressful bridge to fill in a short questionnaire
  • thematic apperception test Ps who crossed stressful bridge stories were found to involve more sexual imagery
  • stressful were 2x as more likely to phone the RA as well
  • when people crossed the bridge they may have confused the physiological arousal as attraction rather than fear
  • reversed it so it was a man RA
  • no difference between stressful and calm bridge
• • thematic apperception test - create story based on pictures
• • Barclay and haber 1965
  • students severely criticised for doing poorly on exams
  • unfamiliar women came in and still stressed them out
  • given the TAT test
  • wrote stories higher in sexual content
  • both men and women in the class
• • Dutton and Aaron replication 1974What is beauty
  • study on effect of electric shock on pain and learning
  • male ps seated in waiting room ear ‘attractive female confederate’ or male confederate
  • shock condition; mere tingle or quite painful (shocks not given but they’re wiaitng to get them)
  • female confederate = less anxious about the shock
  • expected strong shock = higher attraction
• • dio, maclusso, rizzolati 2007
  • asked which one people found more plaseing
  • found the ones with golden ratio to be more pleasing

  
• Schmid, Marx and Samal 2008

  • analysed 420 male and female faces on 17 facial ratios
  • 6 ratios predictive of attractiveness
  • support for golden ratio
  • only a few things measured fit the hypothesis tho
• Pallet, Link, Lee 2010

  • ratio of eye-mouth distance = face length
  • 10 original faces
  • each paired with original and people asked to choose which face more attractive
  • optimal ratios matched the average from a sample of 40 white female faces
• • Langlois et al 1987
  • infants as young as 2 months look longer at attractive faces
• • The average hypothesis
  • more average faces= more attractive
  • Rhodes et al 1999
  • created averaged composite of 24 faces
  • individual faces altered to be closer/farther from the averaged composite
• • halberstadt and rhodes 2000
  • composites created from examples of fish, birds and cars
  • strong correlation between averageness and attractiveness
  • not just faces
  • ratings of attractiveness higher for averaged composites
• • Repp (1997)
  • 10 performances of the same Schumman piano piece + a computer-created “average” of all performances.
  • Panel of 12 expert pianists rated the aesthetic qualities of the pieces (tempo, dynamics, expression).
  • The “average” performance rated aesthetically superior to most of the individual performances.
• • THe ambiguity hypothesis
  • less ambiguous= more beautiful
  • Nicki, Lee & Moss (1981)
  • Panel of judges rated 20 cubist paintings.
  • Less ambiguous paintings rated as more pleasing and more interesting.
• • evolutionary
  • evolutionary pressure selects against extremes
  • facial symmetry and typicality are indicators of genetic health
  • jones, little, but, perett 2002
  • manipulated skin texture to give healthy or unhealthy look
  • heathy skin rated as more attractive
  • reis et al 1985
  • how often a student visited the uni health service wasn't related to attractiveness
  • Applies to extreme genetic defects
  • Otherwise, evidence is weak…
  • Pound et al. (2014)
  • Large (n=4732), representative, longitudinal study in SW England: no correlation facial symmetry and childhood health.
• • cognitive
  • Beauty = processing fluency
  • (Reber, Schwarz, Winkielman, 2004)
  • Fluency
  • Ease of processing the perceptual features or conceptual meaning of a stimulus.
  • Indicates:
  • Progress (successful processing)
  • Familiarity (safe, good)
  • Two sources of processing fluency
  • Intrinsic Properties of Stimulus
  • Ease of processing due to simplicity or activation of pre-existing knowledge.
  • Experience
  • Cognitive representations & processing pathways already active.
  • Perceptual Fluency
  • Conceptual Fluency
• • Perceptual Fluency
  • Ease of processing the physical features of a stimulus.
• • Conceptual Fluency
  • Ease of processing the meaning of a stimulus
• Reber, Winkelman, Schwartz 1998

  • studied line drawings then recognition and preference tests
  • during tests drawings was degraded and preceded by prime
  • matching prime increased recognition speed ad led to higher liking ratings
• Reber, Winkelman, Schwartz 1998

  • manipulated figure-ground contast of pictures
  • subjects rated prettiness or ugliness
  • pictures rated as more pretty increases in figure-ground contrast
  • higher the image contrast = more likable
  • perceptual fluency effect
• • Trujillo, Jankowitsch, Langlois (2015)
  • averaged faces more quickly and easily identified as human faces
  • human or chimpanzee
  • electrophysiological measures of face processing = averaged faces processed more fluently
• Belke et al 2010

  • painting paried with title related or unrelated to actual titel
  • liking higher with related titiel
  • related title -> better disambiguation -> conceptual fluency
• Ease of categorisation = conceptual fluency

  • If fluency = attractiveness, then attractiveness should be lower if categorisation is harder.

  
• Race categorisation:

  • mixed-race composites slower to categorise, rated less attractive
  • Attractiveness directly related to ease of categorisation.
  • Halberstadt ad wikelman 2014
  • single and mixed race face composites
  • categories as caucasian or asian
  • feeling positive or negative
  • rate attractiveness
  • no difference categorisation speed of mixed and singe race composites
• • In female faces consistent preference for “feminine” features rather than “masculine”
  • In male faces, “feminine” features sometimes considered more attractive...
  • “Johnny Depp Effect”
• Owen et al 2016

  • face composites varied on male/female dimension
  • gender categorisation task
  • control= press space when face
  • response time in gender categorisation task highest fro mixed gender faces (poor fluency)
  • mixed gender faces rated least attractive only when gender categorisation is the focus
• • cognitive explnation= beaut= processing fluency
  • can be quantified and measured
  • applies to a wide range of stimuli
  • it might have more influence than we think?
  • ease of processing the perceptual features or conceptual meaning of a stimulus
  • indicates
  • progress (successful processing)
  • familiarity (safe, good, evolved preference)
• • Dutton and Aaron 1974
  • implication of the fact that our reality is created and we often do not fully understand source of our feelings
• Beauty is more complicated

  • memory as feelings
  • memory as interpretation
  • Average hypothesis
  • langlois and roggman 1990
  • 96 individual female faces compared to 32 face composites (bunch of faces smooshed together)
  • 75 rated less attractive, but 4 rated more
• • Jakesch, Leder, Forster (2013)
  • Ambiguity vs. Fluency
  • Used original (ambiguous) and altered (non-ambiguous) versions of Magritte paintings.
  • Manipulated fluency in 2 ways:
  • Ambiguity
  • Presentation Duration
  • temporal perceptual fluency  vs.  conceptual fluency
  • rated
  • liking
  • interest
  • subjective fluency
  • higher for long-duration of presentation
  • Ambiguous paintings seem to be found to be more interesting
• • Why the contradiction between temporal perceptual fluency and conceptual fluency?
  • Possibilities:
  • the brain is wired for ambiguity resolution (intellectual stimulation)
  • we like arousal
  • arousal misattributed to positive affect
• Memory as feelings

  • Halberstadt and rhodes 2003
  • composites created from individual examples of fish, birds, automobiles
  • ratings of attractiveness, typically, familiarity
  • higher for averaged composites
• • Relationship between typicality and familiarity?
  • Prototypical examples are familiar.
  • But things can be familiar without being prototypical.
• Mere Exposure Effect

  “Sheer repetition, leading to familiarity, may result in greater liking for the familiar thing...” -Maslow (1937)
• • maslow 1937
  • Pairs of similar paintings, one member of pair shown each of 4 evenings (other members not shown).
  • Familiarised paintings rated higher on liking & beauty
  • Pairs of Russian female names, one member of pair shown each of 6 evenings (other members not shown).
  • Familiarised names rated higher on liking & more euphonious.
• • mere exposure effect
  • familiarity leads to liking
  • Zajonc 1968
  • showed novel stimuli to subjects
  • turkish words
  • Chinese characters
  • photographs
  • repeated exposure produces increased feelings of goodness or liking
• • Saegert Swap Zajonc (1973)
  • “taste preference” experiment
  • subjects led around to cubicles, different liquid in each
  • sometimes 2 subjects in a cubicle at same time
  • each subject “encountered” other individual subjects
  • 0, 1, 2, 5, 10 times (exposure frequency)
  • after tasting, all subjects seated in a room
  • given questionnaire to rate each other for “likeableness”
  • More frequent exposure
  • à higher favourability rating
  • (not depend on whether liquid
  • was pleasant or noxious tasting)
• • Mere exposure effect
  • familiarity leads to liking - other people
  • Saegert, Swap, Zajonc (1973)
  • Why do romantic partners come from the   same   physical location? (work,   neighbourhood, dorm hall, etc.)
  • Familiarity = resemblance to other examples / prototype, or personal experience or memory
• • Classic theory of emotion
  • James-Lange theory
  • emotional state inferred from physiological cues