Helmut Leder

A model of aesthetic appreciation and aesthetic judgments

Although aesthetic experiences are frequent in modern life, there is as of yet no scientifically comprehensive theory that explains what psychologically constitutes such experiences. These experiences are particularly interesting because of their hedonic properties and the possibility to provide self-rewarding cognitive operations. We shall explain why modern arts large number of individualized styles, innovativeness and conceptuality offer positive aesthetic experiences. Moreover, the challenge of art is mainly driven by a need for understanding. Cognitive challenges of both abstract art and other conceptual, complex and multidimensional stimuli require an extension of previous approaches to empirical aesthetics. We present an information-processing stage model of aesthetic processing. According to the model, aesthetic experiences involve five stages: perception, explicit classification, implicit classification, cognitive mastering and evaluation. The model differentiates between aesthetic emotion and aesthetic judgments as two types of output.

When inverted faces are recognized: The role of configural information in face recognition

The identification of upright faces seems to involve a special sensitivity to “configural” information, the processing of which is less effective when the face is inverted. However the precise meaning of “configural” remains unclear. Five experiments are presented, which showed that the disruption of the processing of relational, rather than holistic, information largely determines the occurrence as well as the size of the face-inversion effect. In Experiment 1, faces could be identified either by unique combinations of local information (e.g. a specific eye colour plus hair colour) or by unique relational information (e.g. nose-mouth distance). The former showed no inversion effect, whereas the latter did. A combination of local and relational information (Experiment 2) again produced an inversion effect, although this effect was smaller than that found when only relational information was used. The results were replicated in Experiment 3 when differences in the brightness of local features were used instead of specific colour combinations. Experiment 4 used different retrieval conditions to distinguish relational from holistic processing, and demonstrated again that spatial relations between single features appeared to provide crucial information for face recognition. In Experiment 5, the importance of relational information was confirmed using faces that also varied in the shapes of local features.

LOCAL AND RELATIONAL ASPECTS OF FACE DISTINCTIVENESS

Distinctiveness contributes strongly to the recognition and rejection of faces in memory tasks. In four experiments we examine the role played by local and relational information in the distinctiveness of upright and inverted faces. In all experiments subjects saw one of three versions of a face: original faces, which had been rated as average in distinctiveness in a previous study (Hancock, Burton, & Bruce, 1996), a more distinctive version in which local features had been changed (D-local), and a more distinctive version in which relational features had been changed (D-rel). An increase in distinctiveness was found for D-local and D-rel faces in Experiment 1 (complete faces) and 3 and 4 (face internals only) when the faces had to be rated in upright presentation, but the distinctiveness of the D-rel faces was reduced much more than that of the D-local versions when the ratings were given to the faces presented upside-down (Experiments 1 and 3). Recognition performance showed a similar pattern: presented upright, both D-local and D-rel revealed higher performance compared to the originals, but in upside-down presentation the D-local versions showed a much stronger distinctiveness advantage. When only internal features of faces were used (Experiments 3 and 4), the D-rel faces lost their advantage over the Original versions in inverted presentation. The results suggest that at least two dimensions of facial information contribute to a faces apparent distinctiveness, but that these sources of information are differentially affected by turning the face upside-down. These findings are in accordance with a face processing model in which face inversion effects occur because a specific type of information processing is disrupted, rather than because of a general disruption of performance.

Configural features in the context of upright and inverted faces

When faces are turned upside down, recognition is known to be severely disrupted. This effect is thought to be due to disruption of configurai processing. Recently, Leder and Bruce (2000, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology A 53 513–536) argued that configural information in face processing consists at least partly of locally processed relations between facial elements. In three experiments we investigated whether a local relational feature (the interocular distance) is processed differently in upside-down versus upright faces. In experiment 1 participants decided in which of two sequentially presented photographic faces the interocular distance was larger. The decision was more difficult in upside-down presentation. Three different conditions were used in experiment 2 to investigate whether this deficit depends upon parts of the face beyond the eyes themselves; displays showed the eye region alone, the eyes and nose, or the eyes and nose and mouth. The availability of additional features did not interact with the inversion effect which was observed strongly even when the eyes were shown in isolation. In experiment 3 all eyes were turned upside down in the inverted face condition as in the Thatcher illusion (Thompson, 1980 Perception 9 483–484). In this case no inversion effect was found. These results are in accordance with an explanation of the face-inversion effect in which the disruption of configural facial information plays the critical role in memory for faces, and in which configural information corresponds to spatial information that is processed in a way which is sensitive to local properties of the facial features involved.

Face-specific configural processing of relational information

Face processing relies on configural processing, which is thought to be particularly disrupted by inversion. We compared inversion effects in recognition experiments for three types of stimuli, using faces (Experiment 1) and houses (Experiment 2). Stimuli varied by their colour only (colour), by the spatial relations between components (relational), or by the components themselves (eyes, mouths, doors). For faces, relational versions revealed strong inversion effects, component versions moderate, and colour versions no inversion effect. Recognition of houses revealed no inversion effects at all. We suggest that the inversion effects observed for faces in the component condition are due to relational changes, which must accompany any change in components. This proposal may account for the rather inconsistent effects of inversion reported in the literature. Furthermore, we suggest configural processing seems to be somehow face-specific.

Ten years of a model of aesthetic appreciation and aesthetic judgments : The aesthetic episode – Developments and challenges in empirical aesthetics

About a decade ago, psychology of the arts started to gain momentum owing to a number of drives: technological progress improved the conditions under which art could be studied in the laboratory, neuroscience discovered the arts as an area of interest, and new theories offered a more comprehensive look at aesthetic experiences. Ten years ago, Leder, Belke, Oeberst, and Augustin (2004) proposed a descriptive information-processing model of the components that integrate an aesthetic episode. This theory offered explanations for modern arts large number of individualized styles, innovativeness, and for the diverse aesthetic experiences it can stimulate. In addition, it described how information is processed over the time course of an aesthetic episode, within and over perceptual, cognitive and emotional components. Here, we review the current state of the model, and its relation to the major topics in empirical aesthetics today, including the nature of aesthetic emotions, the role of context, and the neural and evolutionary foundations of art and aesthetics.

Impact of contour on aesthetic judgments and approach-avoidance decisions in architecture

On average, we urban dwellers spend about 90% of our time indoors, and share the intuition that the physical features of the places we live and work in influence how we feel and act. However, there is surprisingly little research on how architecture impacts behavior, much less on how it influences brain function. To begin closing this gap, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study to examine how systematic variation in contour impacts aesthetic judgments and approach-avoidance decisions, outcome measures of interest to both architects and users of spaces alike. As predicted, participants were more likely to judge spaces as beautiful if they were curvilinear than rectilinear. Neuroanatomically, when contemplating beauty, curvilinear contour activated the anterior cingulate cortex exclusively, a region strongly responsive to the reward properties and emotional salience of objects. Complementing this finding, pleasantness—the valence dimension of the affect circumplex—accounted for nearly 60% of the variance in beauty ratings. Furthermore, activation in a distributed brain network known to underlie the aesthetic evaluation of different types of visual stimuli covaried with beauty ratings. In contrast, contour did not affect approach-avoidance decisions, although curvilinear spaces activated the visual cortex. The results suggest that the well-established effect of contour on aesthetic preference can be extended to architecture. Furthermore, the combination of our behavioral and neural evidence underscores the role of emotion in our preference for curvilinear objects in this domain.

Just how stable are stable aesthetic features? Symmetry, complexity, and the jaws of massive familiarization

Using both group- and individual-level analyses, we explored the complex and dynamic effects of basic visual features on aesthetic judgment. Specifically, the mediating influence of familiarization on the combined effects of complexity and symmetry on aesthetic judgment was examined. Experiment 1 showed that symmetry and complexity are indeed powerful determinants of aesthetic judgment. Experiment 2 demonstrated that massive familiarization generated contrast effects for complexity: participants familiarized to simple stimuli subsequently judged complex stimuli more beautiful and participants familiarized to complex stimuli subsequently judged simple stimuli more beautiful. In contrast, moderate familiarization in Experiment 3 did not elicit the above effects. Group-level analyses were augmented with judgment analyses of individual response patterns resulting in a more comprehensive assessment of aesthetic judgment.

When context hinders! Learn–test compatibility in face recognition

Some theories of holistic face processing propose that parts in faces (eyes, nose, mouth, etc.) are not explicitly represented. So far, the empirical evidence has shown that whole-to-part superiority is found when wholes are learned. We substantiated this using photographic faces. More importantly, we investigated whether learning parts also reveals holistic effects. This has not been attempted before. Four experiments showed that after learning facial parts, recognition of these parts was disrupted when the part was shown in the full face. This distraction effect was strongest when perceivers were not directed to focus on a particular facial feature. Thus, it is very difficult to ignore irrelevant parts in faces. In fact, this might be the essence of holistic face processing.

Adaptation effects of highly familiar faces: Immediate and long lasting.

A central problem of face identification is forming stable representations from entities that vary—both in a rigid and nonrigid manner—over time, under different viewing conditions, and with altering appearances. Three experiments investigated the underlying mechanism that is more flexible than has often been supposed. The experiments used highly familiar faces that were first inspected as configurally manipulated versions. When participants had to select the veridical version (known from TV/media/movies) out of a series of gradually altered versions, their selections were biased toward the previously inspected manipulated versions. This adaptation effect (face identity aftereffect, Leopold, Rhodes, Müller, & Jeffery, 2005) was demonstrated even for a delay of 24h between inspection and test phase. Moreover, the inspection of a specific image version of a famous person not only changed the veridicality decision of the same image, but also transferred to other images of this person as well. Thus, this adaptation effect is apparently not based on simple pictorial grounds, but appears to have a rather structural basis. Importantly, as indicated by Experiment 3, the adaptation effect was not based on a simple averaging mechanism or an episodic memory effect, but on identity-specific information.