Implicit Affective Evaluation of Visual Symmetry

Symmetry and beauty are strongly linked, but is the positive response to visual symmetry automatic? We used the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to measure the valence of visual regularities in the absence of overt judgments. In our first experiment, participants classified dot patterns as random or...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Emotion (Washington, D.C.) D.C.), 2012-10, Vol.12 (5), p.1021-1030
Main Authors: JAMES MAKIN, Alexis David, PECCHINENDA, Anna, BERTAMINI, Marco
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Aesthetics
Affectivity. Emotion
Biological and medical sciences
Emotions - physiology
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Implicit Memory
Judgment
Male
Middle Aged
Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology
Perception
Personality. Affectivity
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reaction Time
Testing
Vision
Visual Perception
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Summary:Symmetry and beauty are strongly linked, but is the positive response to visual symmetry automatic? We used the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to measure the valence of visual regularities in the absence of overt judgments. In our first experiment, participants classified dot patterns as random or having an axis of reflection, and words as positive or negative. When the same button was used to report reflection and positive words, responses were faster than when the same button was used to report reflection and negative words. We take this association to indicate an implicit preference for reflectional patterns. In subsequent experiments, a reflected pattern was preferred to a rotation or translation, and a rotational pattern was preferred to random patterns. In some cases these results were not in agreement with verbally reported preferences, but implicit preferences were always predicted by the speed at which patterns could be identified. We conclude that the IAT can unearth an automatic affective response produced by perceptual fluency.
ISSN:1528-3542
1931-1516
DOI:10.1037/a0026924