Face Attractiveness Versus Artistic Beauty in Art Portraits: A Behavioral Study

Overview

Journal Front Psychol

Date 2018 Jan 10

PMID 29312091

Citations 6

Authors

Katharina Schulz

Gregor U Hayn-Leichsenring

Affiliations

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Abstract

From art portraits, the observer may derive at least two different hedonic values: The of the depicted person and the of the image that relates to the way of presentation. We argue that is a property that is predominantly driven by perceptual processes, while the perception of is based predominantly on cognitive processing. To test this hypothesis, we conducted two behavioral experiments. In a gist study (Experiment 1), we showed that ratings on were higher after short-term presentation (50 ms) than after long-term presentation (3000 ms), while the opposite pattern was found for . In an experiment on perceptual contrast (Experiment 2), we showed that the perceptual contrast effect was stronger for than for These results are compatible with our hypothesis that appreciation of is cognitively modulated at least in part, while processing of is predominantly driven perceptually. This dichotomy between cognitive and perceptual processing of different kinds of beauty suggests the participation of different neuronal mechanisms.

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