Enhanced associations with actions of the artist influence gaze behaviour

The aesthetic experience of the perceiver of art has been suggested to relate to the art-making process of the artist. The artist’s gestures during the creation process have been stated to influence the perceiver’s art-viewing experience. However, limited studies explore the art-viewing experience in relation to the creative process of the artist. We introduced eye-tracking measures to further establish how congruent actions with the artist influence perceiver’s gaze behaviour. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that simultaneous congruent and incongruent actions do not influence gaze behaviour. However, brushstroke paintings were found to be more pleasing than pointillism paintings. In Experiment 3, participants were trained to associate painting actions with hand primes to enhance visuomotor and visuovisual associations with the artist’s actions. A greater amount of time was spent fixating brushstroke paintings when presented with a congruent prime compared with an incongruent prime, and fewer fixations were made to these styles of paintings when presented with an incongruent prime. The results suggest that explicit links that allow perceivers to resonate with the artist’s actions lead to greater exploration of preferred artwork styles

Differences in the Visual Perception of Symmetric Patterns in Orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus abelii) and Two Human Cultural Groups: A Comparative Eye- Tracking Study

Symmetric structures are of importance in relation to aesthetic preference. To investigate whether the preference for symmetric patterns is unique to humans, independent of their cultural background, we compared two human populations with distinct cultural backgrounds (Namibian hunter-gatherers and German town dwellers) with one species of non-human great apes (Orangutans) in their viewing behavior regarding symmetric and asymmetric patterns in two levels of complexity. In addition, the human participants were asked to give their aesthetic evaluation of a subset of the presented patterns. The results showed that humans of both cultural groups fixated on symmetric patterns for a longer period of time, regardless of the pattern’s complexity. On the contrary, Orangutans did not clearly differentiate between symmetric and asymmetric patterns, but were much faster in processing the presented stimuli and scanned the complete screen, while both human groups rested on the symmetric pattern after a short scanning time. The aesthetic evaluation test revealed that the fixation preference for symmetric patterns did not match with the aesthetic evaluation in the Hai//om group, whereas in the German group aesthetic evaluation was in accordance with the fixation preference in 60 percent of the cases. It can be concluded that humans prefer well-ordered structures in visual processing tasks, most likely because of a positive processing bias for symmetry, which Orangutans did not show in this task, and that, in humans, an aesthetic preference does not necessarily accompany the fixation preference

Exploring the Influence of the Visual Attributes of Kaplan's Preference Matrix in the Assessment of Urban Parks: A Discrete Choice Analysis

A significant majority of the literature on natural environments and urban green spaces justifies the preferences that people have for natural environments using four predictors defined by Kaplan's preference matrix theory, namely coherence, legibility, complexity, and mystery. However, there are no studies implicitly focusing on the visual attributes assigned to each of these four predictors. Thus, the aim of this study was to explore the influence of nine visual attributes derived from the four predictors of Kaplan's matrix on people's preferences in the context of urban parks. A discrete choice experiment was used to obtain responses from a sample of 396 students of Golestan University. Students randomly evaluated their preferences towards a set of potential scenarios with urban park images. The results of a random parameter logit analysis showed that all of the attributes of complexity (variety of elements, number of colors, and organization of elements) and one attribute each of coherence (uniformity), mystery (visual access), and legibility (distinctive elements) affect students' choices for urban parks, while one attribute each of mystery (physical access) and legibility (wayfinding) did not affect the choices. Furthermore, the results indicated a preference for heterogeneity of the attributes. The findings of this study can provide instructions for designing parks

Biophilic design of building façades from an Evolutionary Psychology framework

Built environments that integrate representations of the natural world into façades and interiors benefit occupant psycho-physiological well-being and behavior. However, the biophilic quality of buildings does not de-pend exclusively on “green”, but also upon “organized complexity” in their structure. In this exploratory study we compare quantitative (Visual Atten-tion Software) and qualitative approaches (self-rating scales) in the perception of biophilic design of building façades. Eight façades varying in their degree of biophilic design (High, Medium, Low, No biophilic qualities) were assessed on the Perceived Restorativeness Scale-11, on preference, and on a series of physical aesthetic attributes. The eight façades were scanned with Visual At-tention Software (VAS). These measures show many overlapping points. VAS can be considered a way to operationalize the engagement of attention in the first 3-5 seconds of gaze in exploring building design, and self-ratings assess-ments a measure of to what extent the building is perceived as restorative. Higher perceived restorativeness and preference match a higher degree of bi-ophilic design, which corresponds to a building where vegetation is integrated in an organic structure. Vegetation is not the only biophilic characteristic to be considered in biophilic design and this emerges clearly from self-ratings and VAS. Exploring organized complexity is fundamental for understanding human responses to architecture

Aesthetic complexity: practice and perception in art & design

My research investigates the aesthetics of visual complexity in the practice and perception of visual art and design. The aim is to understand visual complexity in terms of the relationship between the objective properties of images and subjective properties of perception. I take a computational and empirical approach to this subject, incorporating methods from information theory, computer graphics, complexity theory and experimental psychology. For testing, I create cellular automata programs to generate stimulus images, and borrow other types of visual material from students and professional artists, designers and craftspeople. Visual complexity is measured in two ways: Firstly, an objective measure of complexity is based on the compression of digital image files, which provides an information-based scale of order to randomness. Secondly, psychophysical techniques are employed to measure the subjective complexity of the images and other aesthetic judgements. Research in complex systems theory and experimental aesthetics suggests that we can expect an inverted ‘U’ correlation between the two measures of complexity

Affective graphs: the visual appeal of linked data

The essence and value of Linked Data lies in the ability of humans and machines to query, access and reason upon highly structured and formalised data. Ontology structures provide an unambiguous description of the structure and content of data. While a multitude of software applications and visualization systems have been developed over the past years for Linked Data, there is still a significant gap that exists between applications that consume Linked Data and interfaces that have been designed with significant focus on aesthetics. Though the importance of aesthetics in affecting the usability, effectiveness and acceptability of user interfaces have long been recognised, little or no explicit attention has been paid to the aesthetics of Linked Data applications. In this paper, we introduce a formalised approach to developing aesthetically pleasing semantic web interfaces by following aesthetic principles and guidelines identified from literature. We apply such principles to design and develop a generic approach of using visualizations to support exploration of Linked Data, in an interface that is pleasing to users. This provides users with means to browse ontology structures, enriched with statistics of the underlying data, facilitating exploratory activities and enabling visual query for highly precise information needs. We evaluated our approach in three ways: an initial objective evaluation comparing our approach with other well-known interfaces for the semantic web and two user evaluations with semantic web researchers

Interpretation of the built environment: users approach; with reference to Nablus as a case study

The current process of growth of the city of Nablus has created many problems, both at subjective and objective levels. Subjective problems are associated with changes in people's attitudes caused by dramatic changes in the character and identity of the city, its cultural continuity and the social structure. Objective problems are associated with deterioration in the physical qualities of the built environment and the crisis of fragmentation in the structure of the city caused by an arbitrary pattern of development. As a result, one may relate these problems to a planning and decision making process which is not compatible with the specificity of the place and its indigenous culture. This thesis is concerned with tracing the origin of these problems and examines people's perception and preferences in order to form a framework, needed to guide the future development of the city and which responds to its people's needs and expectations.At the core of the study is an attempt to explore from people themselves a way of responding to these problems through understanding how they perceive and interpret the environment of their city. Another aim is to identify the area and the type of different interpretations and attitudes towards the environment held by both professionals and the ordinary people. This would provide a broader perspective from which we could gain more insight and information needed for future planning processes.The study has adopted a particular methodology needed for collecting and interpreting primary information. The city of Nablus was chosen as a case study and three techniques were used to gather and interpret data and responses. These techniques were an open - ended questionnaire, the Repertory Grid of George Kelley's Personal Construct Theory and finally Semantic Differential analysis. In addition to this the thesis comprises a literature review and interviews and also benefited from self-experience and observations of the city.Certain areas and notions of concern have been defined and observed through the main findings of the research. The notions of communication, participation, and conservation, for example, are the components engaged in the system of the city transformation, which is specific to its structure. On the other hand, cultural awareness was found to be the catalyst which enables these components to interact within this system and as a result allow people to be virtually and actively involved in their cultural processes