How Beauty Determines Gaze! Facial Attractiveness and Gaze Duration in Images of Real World Scenes

Fat or fillers: The dilemma in eyelid surgery

The aging of the periocular region has always aroused great interest. A fresh, young, and attractive sight determined an ever-greater attention to surgical and non-surgical techniques to obtain this result. In particular, the change in the concept of a young look, considered then "full", led to the increasing use of surgical (fat grafting) or medical (hyaluronic acid) filling techniques. Eyelid rejuvenation became increasingly popular in the field of cosmetic treatments, with a focus on achieving a youthful and refreshed appearance. Among the various techniques available, the choice between using fat grafting or fillers presented a clinical dilemma. In particular, what surgery considered of fundamental importance was a long-lasting result over time. On the other hand, aesthetic medicine considered it fundamental not to have to resort to invasive treatments. But what was the reality? Was there one path better than the other, and above all, was there a better path for patients? The minireview aims to explore the physiopathology, diagnosis, treatment options, prognosis, and future studies regarding this dilemma. We analyzed the literature produced in the last 20 years comparing the two techniques. Current literature reveals advancements in biomaterials, stem cell research and tissue engineering held promise for further enhancing the field of eyelid rejuvenation. The choice between fat grafting and fillers in eyelid cosmetic treatments presented a clinical dilemma. Understanding physiopathology, accurately diagnosing eyelid aging, exploring treatment options, assessing prognosis, and conducting future studies were essential for providing optimal care to patients seeking eyelid rejuvenation.

The psychometrics of rating facial attractiveness using different response scales

Perceiving facial attractiveness is an important behaviour across psychological science due to these judgments having real-world consequences. However, there is little consensus on the measurement of this behaviour, and practices differ widely. Research typically asks participants to provide ratings of attractiveness across a multitude of different response scales, with little consideration of the psychometric properties of these scales. Here, we make psychometric comparisons across nine different response scales. Specifically, we analysed the psychometric properties of a binary response, a 0-100 scale, a visual analogue scale, and a set of Likert scales (1-3, 1-5, 1-7, 1-8, 1-9, 1-10) as tools to measure attractiveness, calculating a range of commonly used statistics for each. While certain properties suggested researchers might choose to favour the 1-5, 1-7 and 1-8 scales, we generally found little evidence of an advantage for one scale over any other. Taken together, our investigation provides consideration of currently used techniques for measuring facial attractiveness and makes recommendations for researchers in this field.

The Effects of Live Streamer's Facial Attractiveness and Product Type on Consumer Purchase Intention: An Exploratory Study with Eye Tracking Technology

As a booming branch of online retailing, live-streaming e-commerce can present abundant information dimensions and diverse forms of expression. Live-streaming e-commerce has enabled online retailers to interact with customers face-to-face, resulting in widespread instances of emotional and impulse buying behavior. Prior research in live-streaming e-commerce has suggested that live streamers' characteristics, especially the live streamer's face, can affect customers' purchase intentions. The present research used questionnaire surveys and an eye tracking experiment to investigate the impact of live streamer's facial attractiveness on consumer purchase intention for search-based and experience-based products. The questionnaire survey analyzed 309 valid questionnaires and revealed that attractive faces are the key influencing factor driving consumers' impulse purchase intentions. Moreover, consumers' emotional experience plays a partial mediating role in the process of live streamers' faces influencing purchase intention. The eye tracking experiment further explored the mechanism of a live streamer's facial attractiveness on consumers' purchase intentions of search-based products and experience-based products from the perspective of visual attention by analyzing 64 valid sets of data. The results showed that attractive faces attract more consumers' attention and, therefore, increase their purchase intention. Furthermore, there is a significant interaction between product type, the live streamer's facial attractiveness, and consumers' purchase intentions. In the case of unattractive live streamers, consumers are more likely to buy search-based products than experience-based products, while the purchase intention does not vary between search-based products and experience-based products in the case of attractive live streamers. The present study provides evidence for 'beauty premium' in live-streaming e-commerce and sheds light on the design of the match between live streamers and different types of products.

Individuals vary in their overt attention preference for positive images consistently across time and stimulus types

What humans look at strongly determines what they see. We show that individual differences in the tendency to look at positive stimuli are stable across time and across contents, establishing gaze positivity preference as a perceptual trait that determines the amount of positively valence stimuli individuals select for visual processing. Furthermore, we show that patients with major depressive disorder exhibit consistently low positivity preference before treatment. In a subset of patients, we also assessed the positivity preference after two months of treatment in which positivity gaze preference increased to levels similar to healthy individuals. We discuss the possible practical diagnostic applications of these findings, as well as how this general gaze-related trait may influence other behavioral and psychological aspects.

Sharing and Receiving Eye-Contact Predicts Mate Choice After a 5-Minute Conversation: Evidence from a Speed-Dating Study

In popular narratives, the first date with a potential mate often centers on their gaze as embodiment of interest and attraction. However, evidence is still lacking on the role of eye-contact as a potent signal in human social interaction in the context of dating. In addition, behavioral mechanisms of mate selection are not well understood. In the present study, we therefore examined mutual eye-contact and its influence on mate choice by applying dual mobile eye-tracking during naturalistic speed-dates. A total of 30 male and 30 female subjects attended four speed-dates each (N = 240). Subjects were more likely to choose those dating partners with whom they shared more eye-contact with. In addition, perceived attractiveness played an important role for mate choice. Interestingly, receiving but not giving eye-contact also predicted individual mate choice. Eye-contact thus acts as an important signal of romantic attraction when encountering a dating partner.

Reading in the city: mobile eye-tracking and evaluation of text in an everyday setting

Reading is often regarded as a mundane aspect of everyday life. However, little is known about the natural reading experiences in daily activities. To fill this gap, this study presents two field studies (N = 39 and 26, respectively), where we describe how people explore visual environments and divide their attention toward text elements in highly ecological settings, i.e., urban street environments, using mobile eye-tracking glasses. Further, the attention toward the text elements (i.e., shop signs) as well as their memorability, measured via follow-up recognition test, were analysed in relation to their aesthetic quality, which is assumed to be key for attracting visual attention and memorability. Our results revealed that, within these urban streets, text elements were looked at most, and looking behaviour was strongly directed, especially toward shop signs, across both street contexts; however, aesthetic values were not correlated either with the most looked at signs or the viewing time for the signs. Aesthetic ratings did however have an effect on memorability, with signs rated higher being better recognised. The results will be discussed in terms aesthetic reading experiences and implications for future field studies.

Let's put a smile on that face-A positive facial expression improves aesthetics of portrait photographs

In today's age of social media and smartphones, portraits-such as selfies or pictures of friends and family-are very frequently produced, shared and viewed images. Despite their prevalence, the psychological factors that characterize a 'good' photo-one that people will generally like, keep, and think is especially aesthetically pleasing-are not well understood. Here, we studied how a subtle change in facial expression (smiling) in portraits determines their aesthetic image value (beyond a more positive appearance of the depicted person). We used AI-based image processing tools in a broad set of portrait photographs and generated neutral and slightly smiling versions of the same pictures. Consistent across two experiments, portraits with a subtle smile increased both spontaneous aesthetic preferences in a swiping task as well as improving more explicit aesthetic ratings after prolonged viewing. Participants distinguished between aspects associated with image beauty and the depicted person's attractiveness, resulting in specific interactions between variables related to participant traits, image content, and task. Our study confirms that a subtle-and in this case fully artificial-smile reliably increases the aesthetic quality of portraits, illustrating how current image processing methods can target psychologically important variables and thereby increase the aesthetic value of photographs.

Eyes can tell: Assessment of implicit attitudes toward AI art

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have significantly improved the abilities of machines. Human-unique abilities, such as art creation, are now being challenged by AI. Recent studies have investigated and compared people's attitudes toward human-made and AI-generated artworks. These results suggest that a negative bias may exist toward the latter. However, none of these previous studies has examined the extent of this bias. In this study, we investigate whether a bias against AI art can be found at an implicit level. Viewers' attitudes toward AI art were assessed using eye-tracking measures and subjective aesthetic evaluations. Visual attention and aesthetic judgments were compared between artworks categorized as human-made and AI-made. The results showed that although it was difficult for individuals to identify AI-generated artwork, they exhibited an implicit prejudice against AI art. Participants looked longer at paintings that they thought were made by humans. No significant effect of categorization of paintings was found in subjective evaluations. These findings suggest that although human and AI art may be perceived as having similar aesthetic values, an implicit negative bias toward AI art exists. Although AI can now perform creative tasks, artistic creativity is still considered a human prerogative.

Seeing Is Believing: Using Eye-Tracking Devices in Environmental Research

OBJECTIVES

This article aims to provide methodological guidance for research that uses eye-tracking devices (ETDs) to study environment and behavior relationships.

BACKGROUND

Vision is an important human sense through which people acquire a large amount of environmental information. ETDs are tools for detecting eye/gaze behaviors, facilitating better understanding about how people collect visual information and how such information is related to emotions and psychological states. However, there is a lack of guidance for the application of ETDs to environment and behavior studies.

METHODS

A literature review was conducted on articles reporting empirical studies that used ETDs. The data were extracted and compiled, including information such as research questions, research design, types of ETDs, variables measured, types of physical environment (or visual stimuli), stimuli durations, data analysis methods, and so on.

RESULTS

Fifty articles were identified. The main research topics were related to urban and landscape environments, and architecture and interior spaces. Most of the research designs were experimental or quasi-experimental designs, with a few cross-sectional studies. The majority types of ETDs were screen-based ETDs, followed by mobile ETDs (glasses). Main variables were gaze fixations, fixation durations, and scan paths. Typical types of stimuli included images, videos, virtual reality, and real environments and/or objects.

CONCLUSIONS

Guidance for eye-tracking research on environment and behavior was developed based on the literature review results, to provide direction for determining research questions, selecting appropriate research designs, establishing participant inclusion and/or excluding criteria, collecting and analyzing data, and interpreting research results.

Preference for ugly faces? -A cognitive study of attentional and memorial biases toward facial information among young females with facial dissatisfaction

Dissatisfaction with facial appearance is one of the strongest contributors to body image disturbance among young Chinese females and leads to a series of psychological and behavioral disorders. By conducting behavioral and ERP experiments, this study illustrates how young females in China with facial dissatisfaction process different levels of facial attractiveness. Experiments 1 and 2 are behavioral experiments in which the dot-probe paradigm was used to explore the participant's attentional bias to facial attractiveness. The results showed that regardless of whether the face image was presented above or below the threshold, young females with facial dissatisfaction exhibited attentional orientation toward lowly attractive faces and attentional avoidance to both lowly and highly attractive faces, while the control group showed difficulty in attentional disengagement from highly attractive faces. In experiment 3, the learning-recognition task was used to examine mnemonic bias toward facial attractiveness among females with facial dissatisfaction, and EEG data were also recorded during the encoding and retrieval phases. The study found that young females with facial dissatisfaction exhibited a mnemonic preference for lowly attractive images at both the encoding and retrieving stages, with higher P1, N170, P2, and N300 induced by lowly attractive faces, while the control group preferred highly attractive faces. In conclusion, young females with facial dissatisfaction tend to exhibit attentional orientation and mnemonic bias toward lowly attractive faces.

Swipes and Saves: A Taxonomy of Factors Influencing Aesthetic Assessments and Perceived Beauty of Mobile Phone Photographs

Digital images taken by mobile phones are the most frequent class of images created today. Due to their omnipresence and the many ways they are encountered, they require a specific focus in research. However, to date, there is no systematic compilation of the various factors that may determine our evaluations of such images, and thus no explanation of how users select and identify relatively “better” or “worse” photos. Here, we propose a theoretical taxonomy of factors influencing the aesthetic appeal of mobile phone photographs. Beyond addressing relatively basic/universal image characteristics, perhaps more related to fast (bottom-up) perceptual processing of an image, we also consider factors involved in the slower (top-down) re-appraisal or deepened aesthetic appreciation of an image. We span this taxonomy across specific types of picture genres commonly taken—portraits of other people, selfies, scenes and food. We also discuss the variety of goals, uses, and contextual aspects of users of mobile phone photography. As a working hypothesis, we propose that two main decisions are often made with mobile phone photographs: (1) Users assess images at a first glance—by swiping through a stack of images—focusing on visual aspects that might be decisive to classify them from “low quality” (too dark, out of focus) to “acceptable” to, in rare cases, “an exceptionally beautiful picture.” (2) Users make more deliberate decisions regarding one’s “favorite” picture or the desire to preserve or share a picture with others, which are presumably tied to aspects such as content, framing, but also culture or personality, which have largely been overlooked in empirical research on perception of photographs. In sum, the present review provides an overview of current focal areas and gaps in research and offers a working foundation for upcoming research on the perception of mobile phone photographs as well as future developments in the fields of image recording and sharing technology.

Visual responses of patients with generalized anxiety disorder who cycling in the virtual sportscapes with different tree cover densities

The tree density of virtual sportscape is the main factor that determines the benefits that generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) patients can obtain when they exercise with virtual environment. By using pupil size, fixation count and time as metrics, this research aimed to clarify the relationship between tree cover density and stress in the virtual environment. Ninety GAD patients were randomly grouped into the 36-60% tree density (high tree density, HTDS), 20-35% tree density (medium tree density, MTDS), or control groups (n = 30). Researchers used eye-tracking technology to analyze fixation time, fixation count and changes in pupil size to evaluate the stress changes of participants after 20 min of aerobic exercise in a virtual environment. The results showed that pupil size expanded in GAD patients after exercising in the virtual environment. Furthermore, GAD patient cycling in the MTDS group can show smaller pupil size than those in HTDS. Those results suggest that GAD patient cycling 20 min in the MTDS group can perceived lower stress. The results of eye tracking analysis showed that GAD patients spend more time and counts observing tree elements in HTDS and MTDS sportscapes. Specifically, they spent more 48% and 27% time on tree and green plants in the HTDS condition and MTDS condition, respectively, than in non-natural sportsscapes. Although 36-60% tree density of virtual natural sportscape can get more visual attention from GAD patients, 20-35% tree density of virtual natural sportscape is more capable of reducing their stress.

Eye-tracking analyses of physician face gaze patterns in consultations

Face gaze is a fundamental non-verbal behaviour and can be assessed using eye-tracking glasses. Methodological guidelines are lacking on which measure to use to determine face gaze. To evaluate face gaze patterns we compared three measures: duration, frequency and dwell time. Furthermore, state of the art face gaze analysis requires time and manual effort. We tested if face gaze patterns in the first 30, 60 and 120 s predict face gaze patterns in the remaining interaction. We performed secondary analyses of mobile eye-tracking data of 16 internal medicine physicians in consultation with 100 of their patients. Duration and frequency of face gaze were unrelated. The lack of association between duration and frequency suggests that research may yield different results depending on which measure of face gaze is used. Dwell time correlates both duration and frequency. Face gaze during the first seconds of the consultations predicted face gaze patterns of the remaining consultation time (R² 0.26 to 0.73). Therefore, face gaze during the first minutes of the consultations can be used to predict face gaze patterns over the complete interaction. Researchers interested to study face gaze may use these findings to make optimal methodological choices.

Does beauty capture the eye, even if it's not (overtly) adaptive? A comparative eye-tracking study of spontaneous attention and visual preference with VAST abstract art

Studies have routinely shown that individuals spend more time spontaneously looking at people or at mimetic scenes that they subsequently judge to be more aesthetically appealing. This "beauty demands longer looks" phenomenon is typically explained by biological relevance, personal utility, or other survival factors, with visual attraction often driven by structural features (symmetry, texture), which may signify fitness and to which most humans tend to respond similarly. However, what of objects that have less overtly adaptive relevance? Here, we consider whether people also look longer at abstract art with little associative/mimetic content that they subsequently rate for higher aesthetic appeal. We employed the "Visual aesthetic sensitivity test" (VAST), which consists of pairs of matched abstract designs with one example of each pair argued to be objectively 'aesthetically better' in regards to low-level features, thus offering a potential contrast between 'objective' (physical feature-based) and 'subjective' (personal taste-based) assessments. Participants (29 women) first looked at image pairs without a specific task and then in three follow-up blocks indicated their preference within the pairs and rated the individual images for liking and for presumed ratings by an art expert. More preferred designs were looked at longer. However, longer looking only occurred in line with participants' subjective tastes. This suggests a general correlation of attention and visual beauty, which-in abstract art-may nonetheless be related to features that are not identified by experts as more generally appealing and thus may not directly map to other (more utility-related) stimuli types.

Perceptual Advantage of Animal Facial Attractiveness: Evidence From b-CFS and Binocular Rivalry

Research has shown that attractive human faces enjoy an advantage in both conscious and preconscious processing. Here we examined whether this preference for attractiveness is exclusive to human faces by measuring participants’ sensitivity to the attractiveness of cat and tiger faces. Experiment 1 measured the time taken to break continuous flash suppression (b-CFS), whereas Experiment 2 measured the dominant time in binocular rivalry (BR). The results showed that attractive cat faces were detected more quickly (Experiment 1) and dominated for longer time in visual awareness (Experiment 2). However, no effect of attractiveness was found for tiger faces in Experiment 1, while attractive tiger faces also dominated for longer time in visual awareness in Experiment 2. The results provide first evidence that the preference for attractive animal faces can be shown involuntarily or without apparent conscious control. The findings suggest that human preference for facial attractiveness may contain an aesthetic element rather than being a purely adaptive means for mate choice.

Factors Influencing Labeling Nonconsensual Sex as Sexual Assault

The current study examined the effects of physical attractiveness and sexual interest cues on men's sexual perceptions of women and whether increases in sexual perceptions of a woman would lead to decreases in labeling of subsequent nonconsensual sex as sexual assault. Two hundred thirty-three male college students (M_age = 19.17, SD = 1.22) read a vignette describing a hypothetical social interaction between a man and a woman; within the vignette, the female character's physical attractiveness (attractive vs. less attractive) and the degree to which the female character behaved interested in the male character (uninterested vs. ambiguous) were manipulated. The vignette ends with the male character physically forcing sexual intercourse with the female character. After reading the vignette, participants' labeling of the nonconsensual sex as sexual assault was addressed. Participants' perceptions of the female character's sexual interest in the male character prior to the nonconsensual sex was assessed as a dependent variable during stopping points in the vignette, prior to sexual assault. Both physical attractiveness and interest cues had a significant positive influence on men's perception of the female character as sexually interested. In addition, perceptions of sexual interest had a direct negative effect on sexual assault labeling. These results indicate that increases in physical attractiveness and interest cues increase perceptions of sexual interest, in turn decreasing the labeling of nonconsensual sex as sexual assault. This experimental research contributes to the literature on misperception of sexual interest and sexual assault labeling. These findings provide implications for intervention programs and for forensic issues related to sexual assault.

Mechanisms for the Cognitive Processing of Attractiveness in Adult and Infant Faces: From the Evolutionary Perspective

Research on the cognitive processing of facial attractiveness has mainly focused on adult faces. Recent studies have revealed that the cognitive processing of facial attractiveness in infant faces is not the same as that in adult faces. Therefore, it is necessary to summarize the evidence on the processing of facial attractiveness in each kind of face and compare their underlying mechanisms. In this paper, we first reviewed studies on the cognitive processing of facial attractiveness in adult faces, including attentional and mnemonic processing, and then discussed the underlying mechanisms. Afterward, studies on facial attractiveness in infant faces were reviewed, and the underlying mechanisms were also discussed. Direct comparisons between the two kinds of cognitive processing were subsequently made. The results showed that the mechanisms for the processing of attractiveness in adult faces and infant faces are mainly motivated by the perspectives of mate selection and raising offspring, respectively, in evolutionary psychology. Finally, directions for future research are proposed.

Observation of environments with different restorative potential results in differences in eye patron movements and pupillary size

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Mean number of fixations, fixation durations and pupil dilation were calculated for high and low restorative potential scenes.

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There were significantly more fixations for low restorative than for high restorative scenes.

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Fixation times had the predicted inverse relationship, with low restorative settings having a significantly shorter time per fixation than high restorative scenes.

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Higher measures of pupil dilatation were related to the view of high restorative potential vs. low restorative potential environments.

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Eye movements related to photographs, low on fascination, were characterized by a greater exploration and a greater number of fixations compared to those which rated high on fascination.

The Environmental Psychological Restoration (EPR) is the result of the recovery of an antecedent deficit (e.g. stress or attentional fatigue) culminating in a restorative environment exposure. Recent findings suggest that visual contact with nature is important in triggering restorative responses. We measure the behavioral evidence of visual exposure to restorative environments in an eye-tracking study. Eye movement patterns (fixations and pupil dilatation) were evaluated while a sample of participants (n = 27; 15 females and 12 males) viewed photographs with High Restorative Potential (HRP) or Low Restorative Potential (LRP). The eye patterns during the observation of LRP were distinct to those of the HRP environments. Eye movements related to LRP photographs were characterized by a greater number of fixations compared to those related to HRP. Fixation times predicted an inverse relation, with LRP settings having a significantly shorter time per fixation than HRP pictures. Differences on pupil diameter were found. A higher pupil size was found during the view of HRP vs. LRP environments. Our eye tracking study suggest that restorative environment observation is associated with reduced eye movement activity relative to low restorative potential environment perception, which may reflect a lower cognitive effort in processing natural scenes. Likewise, pupillary dilatation variations suggest a possible link between the affective valences of the settings and its restorative quality. Data results are confronted according to attention restoration theory on restorative environments.

Behavioural and Neural Responses to Facial Disfigurement

Faces are among the most salient and relevant visual and social stimuli that humans encounter. Attractive faces are associated with positive character traits and social skills and automatically evoke larger neural responses than faces of average attractiveness in ventral occipito-temporal cortical areas. Little is known about the behavioral and neural responses to disfigured faces. In two experiments, we tested the hypotheses that people harbor a disfigured is bad bias and that ventral visual neural responses, known to be amplified to attractive faces, represent an attentional effect to facial salience rather than to their rewarding properties. In our behavioral study (N = 79), we confirmed the existence of an implicit 'disfigured is bad' bias. In our functional MRI experiment (N = 31), neural responses to photographs of disfigured faces before treatment evoked greater neural responses within ventral occipito-temporal cortex and diminished responses within anterior cingulate cortex. The occipito-temporal activity supports the hypothesis that these areas are sensitive to attentional, rather than reward properties of faces. The relative deactivation in anterior cingulate cortex, informed by our behavioral study, may reflect suppressed empathy and social cognition and indicate evidence of a possible neural mechanism underlying dehumanization.

The Impact of Biometeorological Conditions on the Perception of Landscape

A landscape is part of our daily lives and our perception of its features may significantly impact our quality of life. This article presents the results of research aimed at determining the influence of biometeorological conditions on the way in which we perceive the landscape. An eye tracker was used throughout each season of the year to determine how 52 respondents observed the landscape while taking into consideration whether the landscape had a favorable or unfavorable impact on those same respondents. Additionally, each test was preceded by the completion of a questionnaire intended to assess the mental and physical state of each respondent. The calculated eye movement indexes demonstrated the impact of the biometeorological conditions on their perception of the landscape. Statistically significant differences in their perception of the landscape were ascertained depending on the type of weather and the respondents’ general feeling irrespective of their sex.

How relationship status and sociosexual orientation influence the link between facial attractiveness and visual attention

Facial attractiveness captures and binds visual attention, thus affecting visual exploration of our environment. It is often argued that this effect on attention has evolutionary functions related to mating. Although plausible, such perspectives have been challenged by recent behavioral and eye-tracking studies, which have shown that the effect on attention is moderated by various sex- and goal-related variables such as sexual orientation. In the present study, we examined how relationship status and sociosexual orientation moderate the link between attractiveness and visual attention. We hypothesized that attractiveness leads to longer looks and that being single as well as being more sociosexually unrestricted, enhances the effect of attractiveness. Using an eye-tracking free-viewing paradigm, we tested 150 heterosexual men and women looking at images of urban real-world scenes depicting two people differing in facial attractiveness. Participants additionally provided attractiveness ratings of all stimuli. We analyzed the correlations between how long faces were looked at and participants’ ratings of attractiveness and found that more attractive faces—especially of the other sex—were looked at longer. We also found that more sociosexually unrestricted participants who were single had the highest attractiveness-attention correlation. Our results show that evolutionary predictions cannot fully explain the attractiveness-attention correlation; perceiver characteristics and motives moderate this relationship.

Capturing Aesthetic Experiences With Installation Art: An Empirical Assessment of Emotion, Evaluations, and Mobile Eye Tracking in Olafur Eliasson's "Baroque, Baroque!"

Installation art is one of the most important and provocative developments in the visual arts during the last half century and has become a key focus of artists and of contemporary museums. It is also seen as particularly challenging or even disliked by many viewers, and—due to its unique in situ, immersive setting—is equally regarded as difficult or even beyond the grasp of present methods in empirical aesthetic psychology. In this paper, we introduce an exploratory study with installation art, utilizing a collection of techniques to capture the eclectic, the embodied, and often the emotionally-charged viewing experience. We present results from an investigation of two pieces, both part of Olafur Eliasson’s exhibition “Baroque, Baroque” held at the Belvedere museum in Vienna. These were assessed by pre- and post-viewing questionnaires focusing on emotion, meaning-making, and appraisals, in tandem with mobile eye tracking to consider viewers’ attention to both installed artworks and/or to the museum environment. The data showed differences in participants’ emotional states, appraisals, and visual exploration, which together paint a picture of the aesthetic reactions to the works. These differences also showed how viewers’ appraisal strategies, meaning making, and physical actions facilitated relatively more or less deep engagement with, and enjoyment of, the art. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for museum studies, art education, and theory in empirical aesthetics.

Attentional Bias to Beauty with Evolutionary Benefits: Evidence from Aesthetic Appraisal of Landscape Architecture

Substantial evidence suggests that beauty is associated with the survival and reproduction of organisms. Landscape architecture is composed of a series of natural elements that have significant evolutionary implications. The present study used one pilot material ratings and three experiments to examine the mechanisms of aesthetic appraisals of landscape architecture. The results confirmed that landscape architecture elicited a sense of beauty and captured visual attention more easily than other types of architecture during explicit aesthetic rating task (Experiment 1) and implicit aesthetic perception task (dot-probe paradigm, Experiment 2). Furthermore, the spatial cueing paradigm revealed that response latencies were significantly faster for landscape architecture than non-landscape architecture on valid trials, but there was no significant difference in this contrast on invalid trials at 150-ms stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA, Experiment 3a). At 500-ms SOA (Experiment 3b), participants responded significantly faster for landscape architecture on valid trials, but reacted significantly slower for landscape architecture on invalid trials. The findings indicated that the beauty of landscape architecture can be perceived implicitly, and only faster orienting of attention, but not delayed disengagement of attention was generated at early stages of the processing of landscape architecture. However, the attentional bias at later stages of attentional processes may be resulted from both faster orienting of attention and delayed disengagement of attention from landscape architecture photographs.

Taking the Perfect Selfie: Investigating the Impact of Perspective on the Perception of Higher Cognitive Variables

Taking selfies is now becoming a standard human habit. However, as a social phenomenon, research is still in the fledgling stage and the scientific framework is sparse. Selfies allow us to share social information with others in a compact format. Furthermore, we are able to control important photographic and compositional aspects, such as perspective, which have a strong impact on the assessment of a face (e.g., demonstrated by the height-weight illusion, effects of gaze direction, faceism-index). In Study 1, we focused on the impact of perspective (left/right hemiface, above/below vs. frontal presentation) on higher cognitive variables and let 172 participants rate the perceived attractiveness, helpfulness, sympathy, dominance, distinctiveness, and intelligence, plus important information on health issues (e.g., body weight), on the basis of 14 3D faces. We could show that lateral snapshots yielded higher ratings for attractiveness compared to the classical frontal view. However, this effect was more pronounced for left hemifaces and especially female faces. Compared to the frontal condition, 30° right hemifaces were rated as more helpful, but only for female faces while faces viewed from above were perceived as significant less helpful. Direct comparison between left vs. right hemifaces revealed no effect. Relating to sympathy, we only found a significant effect for 30° right male hemifaces, but only in comparison to the frontal condition. Furthermore, female 30° right hemifaces were perceived as more intelligent. Relating to body weight, we replicated the so-called “height-weight illusion.” Other variables remained unaffected. In Study 2, we investigated the impact of a typical selfie-style condition by presenting the respective faces from a lateral (left/right) and tilted (lower/higher) vantage point. Most importantly, depending on what persons wish to express with a selfie, a systematic change of perspective can strongly optimize their message; e.g., increasing their attractiveness by shooting from above left, and in contrast, decreasing their expressed helpfulness by shooting from below. We could further extent past findings relating to the height-weight illusion and showed that an additional rotation of the camera positively affected the perception of body weight (lower body weight). We discuss potential explanations for perspective-related effects, especially gender-related ones.