Aesthetic Science of Color and Spatial Composition

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

The present research project aims to understand how people respond aesthetically to the spatial composition and color composition of simple, visually displayed images. Despite the importance of aesthetic evaluations in our everyday lives -- not only when we visit museums, but also when we buy clothes, choose movies, take vacations, decorate our homes, and landscape our yards -- surprisingly little is known scientifically about what color combinations and spatial arrangements people prefer. Most previous treatments have come from philosophers, artists, and art theorists, who take a prescriptive approach by stating what one should prefer aesthetically. In this project the principal investigator takes a scientific, descriptive approach by analyzing what people actually do prefer aesthetically and the variables that determine these aesthetic preferences. Early findings on spatial composition show, for example, that people prefer symmetrical views of an object (such as a front-view of a face) to be positioned at or near the center of the image, but asymmetrical views (such as a side-view of a face) to be positioned laterally off center so that it faces into the frame. Early findings on color composition show, for instance, that people generally prefer pairs of colors that contain similar (rather than contrasting) colors, but that a given color looks more aesthetically pleasing against a highly contrasting (rather than a similar) color. The proposed research project provides a promising new bridge between art and science. It defines an interdisciplinary research endeavor -- called aesthetic science -- that uses well-defined behavioral methods to understand an aesthetic dimension of human experience that is distinct from the well-studied cognitive (knowledge-based) aspects and emotional (feeling-based) aspects of experience. It also defines new research methods aimed at understanding different patterns of aesthetic preference between individuals across different aesthetic domains. Do people who prefer unusual, highly contrasting color combinations, for example, also prefer unexpected spatial compositions? Given the pioneering nature of the proposed research on an under-studied topic, all manner of new discoveries are possible, both within the field of aesthetic science and linking it with knowledge in the existing fields of emotion and cognitive science.