Natural color composition induces oddball P3 asymmetry associated with processing fluency.

Color composition is a crucial factor in the aesthetic evaluation of paintings. Several studies have reported a prototype preference for art paintings, where altering the original painting results in a poorer aesthetic evaluation. If the original painting has familiar features, the phenomenon of original preference may be due to the fluency of processing color composition in paintings. However, there are few investigations into the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the preference for original paintings. This study aimed to clarify whether the original preference is due to the fluency of processing color composition using P3 asymmetry to reflect perceptual fluency for stimuli. Oddball tasks with a combination of the original and 180°, or 90° and 270° as control, were performed by swapping the repetitive and deviant stimuli for each task. The results revealed that P3 asymmetry was found only with a combination of 0° and 180°, indicating that the color composition of original paintings can be fluently processed compared with other color compositions in hue-rotated paintings. This explanation may lead to the elucidation of universal color preferences or physiological mechanisms that favor certain color compositions.