Lecture 3 - Aesthetic Evaluations

what three broad categories influence aesthetic judgments?

• social information

• individual experience with stimulus

  • mere exposure effect

• individual’s ability to process a class of stimulus

  • classic Thatcher Effect: flaws in inverted faces are harder to detect than in upright faces?

  • stimuli can be difficult to process (inverted, blurred, pixelated, etc)

what four subcategories of social information influence aesthetic judgment?

• artist status

• artist morality

• perceived value

• groups I identify with / look up to

• preference of others & majority

Describe the Familiarity and social norms study? what were the results? what was the conclusion?

• Background

  • UCSD undergrads were familiarized with half a set of faces depending on exposure group

  • Presented with a choice task to pick between two faces which is more attractive (half the faces shown have been exposed before) (faces also presented with social feedback percentage number to show which face peers believe to be the more attractive face)

  • social feedback + familiarity = results

• Results

  • faces that are familiar appear more attractive

  • positive social feedback makes faces more attractive

  • social feedback works across all exposure levels

• Conclusion

  • both the individual level factor (mere exposure) and social norms (feedback) have robust effects on judgements (attractiveness). Interestingly, they worked independently

Describe the study that investigated the relationship between positive character traits and rating of attractiveness. Results? Conclusion?

• Background

  • 4 conditions of face information (none, mixed, negative, & positive)

    • none - no traits shown

    • mixed - 1 positive 1 negative

    • positive - 2 positives

    • negative - 2 negatives

  • sample trial: face → name → traits (pos, neg, or none) → rating from 1-7

• Results

  • faces with negative traits are rated as least attractive

  • faces with positive traits are rated as most attractive

  • no significant difference between faces with no information and faces with mixed information

• Conclusion

  • what is good seems beautiful - positive traits makes faces more attractive than those with negative traits

Describe the study that investigated whether or not familiarity attenuates social conformity effects. Results? Conclusion?

• Background

  • traits + social feedback = results on attractiveness scale

  • sample trial: face → name → information conditions (list of traits whether pos or neg) → social feedback condition (% of peers who gave a like to face in terms of attractiveness) → Asked to give 1-7 rating of face

• Results

  • positive traits increase attractiveness

  • positive social feedback increases attractiveness

• Conclusion

  • trait knowledge and social norms independently shape attractiveness judgments, with social feedback having a robust influence regardless of trait information

Describe the study that investigated the relationship between traits, norms, and facial attractiveness. Results?

• Background

  • same as study 3

    • added question about “social” attractiveness: How likely do you think this face would perform in a facial attractiveness contest, where expert judges evaluate participants based solely on their facial features?

• Results

  • results for subjective attractiveness: positive feedback increases attractiveness

  • results for social attractiveness: positive feedback increases attractiveness

what is the overall conclusion of all four studies?

• aesthetic evaluations depend on individual familarity with the stimulus and social norms . . .

  • perceptual familiarity (mere exposure) results in higher attractiveness

  • if others judge as highly attractive, you’re also likely to judge as more attractive

• personal familiarity (learning of different traits) also influences holisitic attractiveness

• however, trait knowledge has no effect when explicitly judging physical attractiveness of the face alone

• in our case, social norms remain influential and independently shapes attractiveness judgments across all familiarity levels (perceptual familiarity (mere exposure) and personal familiarity (trait information))