Palumbo Letizia, Rampone Giulia, Bertamini Marco
Department of Psychology, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
Department of Psychology, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom.
PeerJ. 2021 Mar 9;9:e10877. doi: 10.7717/peerj.10877. eCollection 2021.
Preference for smooth contours occurs for a variety of visual stimuli. However, there are individual differences. Openness to experience, a trait associated with aesthetic appreciation, emotional sensitivity and abstract thinking, correlates with this preference. The evaluation of meaningless stimuli entails automatic associations influenced by knowledge, intellectual interests and individual experiences which are diverse. However, it is difficult to capture this variability in studies restricted to Undergraduate students in Psychology with a prevalence of female participants.
Here we examined preference for curvature with 160 undergraduate students in Psychology, Mathematics, Engineering and Computer Science, balanced for gender. Participants viewed abstract shapes varying for contour (angular vs. curved). The shapes presented variations in Vertices (10, 20, 30) and Concavity (30%, 40%, 50%) to increase complexity. Participants rated how much they liked each shape on a 0 (dislike) to 100 (like) scale. Furthermore, because students in pure Science disciplines present autistic-like traits as measured with the Autism Quotient (AQ), and there is evidence that individuals with autism respond positively to edgy abstract shapes, participants also completed the AQ.
Overall participants preferred curved shapes to angular shapes. We confirmed past research showing that complexity played a key role, with simple shapes with less vertices (10 vertices) being preferred over shapes with larger number of vertices (20 and 30 vertices). Furthermore, simple shapes (10 vertices) were preferred more with more concavities (50%). Importantly, an interaction between academic degree and gender revealed that preference for smooth curvature was stronger for Psychology female participants. Science students scored higher than Psychology students on the AQ. Interestingly, multilevel analyses showed that the variability of AQ traits in the sample did not contribute to this interaction. The results are discussed in relation to theories of preference formation and individual differences.
对于各种视觉刺激都会出现对平滑轮廓的偏好。然而，存在个体差异。经验开放性是一种与审美欣赏、情感敏感性和抽象思维相关的特质，它与这种偏好相关。对无意义刺激的评估需要受到知识、智力兴趣和多样的个人经历影响的自动联想。然而，在以女性参与者为主的心理学专业本科生研究中，很难捕捉到这种变异性。
在这里，我们对160名心理学、数学、工程学和计算机科学专业的本科生进行了研究，性别均衡，以考察他们对曲率的偏好。参与者观看了轮廓不同（有角的与弯曲的）的抽象形状。这些形状在顶点数量（10、20、30）和凹度（30%、40%、50%）上呈现出变化，以增加复杂性。参与者在0（不喜欢）到100（喜欢）的量表上对每个形状的喜欢程度进行评分。此外，由于纯科学学科的学生用自闭症商数（AQ）测量时表现出自闭症样特质，并且有证据表明自闭症患者对尖锐的抽象形状有积极反应，参与者还完成了AQ测试。
总体而言，参与者更喜欢弯曲形状而非有角形状。我们证实了过去的研究结果，即复杂性起着关键作用，顶点较少（10个顶点）的简单形状比顶点较多（20个和每个形状30个顶点）的形状更受青睐。此外，简单形状（10个顶点）在凹度更大（50%）时更受青睐。重要的是，学术学位和性别的交互作用表明，心理学专业的女性参与者对平滑曲率的偏好更强。理科学生在AQ测试中的得分高于心理学专业学生。有趣的是，多层次分析表明，样本中AQ特质的变异性对这种交互作用没有影响。我们将结合偏好形成理论和个体差异来讨论这些结果。
