Aesthetic preferences for causality in biological movements arise from visual processes

Chen, Y.-C., Pollick, F. and Lu, H. (2022) Aesthetic preferences for causality in biological movements arise from visual processes. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 29(5), pp. 1803-1811. (doi: 10.3758/s13423-022-02106-z) (PMID:35501545)

[img] Text
270765.pdf - Accepted Version

619kB

Abstract

“People watching” is a ubiquitous component of human activities. An important aspect of such activities is the aesthetic experience that arises naturally from seeing how elegant people move their bodies in performing different actions. What makes some body movements look better than others? We examine how the human visual system gives rise to aesthetic experience from observing actions, using “creatures” generated by spatially scrambling locations of a point-light walker’s joints. Observers rated how aesthetically pleasing and lifelike creatures were when the trajectories of joints were generated either from an upright walker (thus exhibiting gravitational acceleration) or an inverted walker (thus defying gravity), and were either congruent to the direction of global body displacements or incongruent (as in the moonwalk). Observers gave both higher aesthetic and animacy ratings for creatures with upright compared to inverted trajectories, and congruent compared to incongruent movements. Moreover, after controlling for animacy, aesthetic preferences for causally plausible movements (those in accord with gravity and body displacement) persisted. This systematicity in aesthetic impressions, even in the absence of explicit recognition of the moving agents, suggests an important role of automatic perceptual mechanisms in determining aesthetic experiences.

Item Type:Articles
Additional Information:This project was funded by NSF BSC-1655300 awarded to HL.
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Pollick, Professor Frank
Authors: Chen, Y.-C., Pollick, F., and Lu, H.
College/School:College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Psychology & Neuroscience
Journal Name:Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
Publisher:Springer
ISSN:1069-9384
ISSN (Online):1531-5320
Published Online:02 May 2022
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2022 The Psychonomic Society, Inc.
First Published:First published in Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 29(5): 1803-1811
Publisher Policy:Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy

University Staff: Request a correction | Enlighten Editors: Update this record