Personality and judgements of abstract,pop art,and representational paintings

This study was concerned with the question of which personality variables are most predictive of judgements of particular types of painting. One hundred and twenty‐one participants rated 24 slides of abstract, pop art, and representational paintings. They then completed two questionnaires which measured sensation seeking (SS) and the ‘Big Five’ personality dimensions. Thrill and Adventure Seeking was positively correlated with a liking of representational art while Disinhibition was associated with positive ratings of abstract art and pop art. Neuroticism was positively correlated with positive ratings of abstract and pop art, while conscientiousness was linked to liking of representational art. Openness to Experience was linked to positive ratings of all three art types. Agreeableness was negatively linked to liking of pop art. It was also found that art education and frequency of visits to art galleries were linked to positive ratings of abstract paintings. Regressional analyses showed about a fifth of the variance could be accounted for by personality and demographic variables. Personality variables were most strongly linked to positive judgements of representational art and least related to ratings of pop art. Overall the sensation seeking variables accounted for more of the variance than the big five dimensions. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dimensions of the perception of art: verbal scales and similarity judgements

Abstract.— An INDSCAL analysis was performed on subjects' similarity judgements of all pairs of 12 landscape paintings. Three principal INDSCAL dimensions were identified by analysing responses to 24 unidimensional rating scales derived from previous experiments. The present findings, together with those of previously published studies, suggest that three of the principal dimensions of perception of art appear to be (1) Hedonic-Representational, (2) Clarity, (3) A Dynamic factor involving activity, balance and symmetry. It is suggested that although Complexity may be an important factor influencing responses to simple stimuli, its rôle in the perception of paintings is small, and has frequently been over-emphasised.     

Visual parsing and priority effects in temporal order judgements of line drawn patterns

Five experiments are reported in which the perception of the order of the components of line drawn patterns presented in rapid temporal sequence on a visual display unit was investigated. In experiments 1 and 2, respectively, a schematic face and an asymmetrical geometric design, and a realistic face and a symmetrical geometric design were each divided into four fragments consisting of outline and three internal features. These fragments were presented to observers in sequences in which the position of the outline in the sequence was systematically varied. Observers reported the perceived order of the fragments. If the order was misperceived the interfragment interval was increased until the sequence was correctly perceived. Analysis of the pattern of perceptual errors and the interfragment presentation interval at which the sequence was correctly perceived indicated that observers tended to perceive the sequence correctly when the outline was presented in first or last position, but had difficulty in doing this when it occupied an intermediate position. This effect was significantly stronger with facial than with geometric patterns. Furthermore, in the case of two face patterns, errors were of a form where observers reported the outline presented in positions two or three as occupying positions one or four respectively. In experiment 3 an identical procedure was used to compare the perception of temporally fragmented normal and inverted faces. The outline position effect was equally strong in both cases. In experiment 4 the relative strength of the tendency to move the outline towards first or final position was assessed by dividing each of two patterns, a face and a house, into three fragments consisting of outline and two groups of internal features. Order perception was significantly better with outline in first or third position, but where it was presented in the intermediate position it was reported as being presented in first position. In experiment 5 the general pattern of results obtained in experiments 1, 2, and 3 was verified with the use of a methodology in which pattern fragment sequences and interfragment intervals were both randomised from trial to trial and the observer's task was to specify the position of the outline in the sequence. Four patterns--a normal face, a face with inverted internal features (INF face), a face outline with irrelevant internal features (IRF face), and a geometric design--were each divided into four fragments consisting of outline and three internal features.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

Using art for comparison and distraction: Effects on negative emotions and judgements of satisfaction

Abstract

Two studies examined whether emotional comparison and distraction with emotion congruent and incongruent art would improve the well-being of dysphoric undergraduates. In both studies, subjects: (1) imagined a sad event; (2) compared their mood to that expressed by incongruent art (upward comparison) or congruent art (downward comparison); or focused on technical features of incongruent art (incongruent distraction) or congruent art (congruent distraction); and (3) rated their emotions and life satisfaction. The incongruent distraction group reported feeling more positive and more satisfied, and the downward comparison group reported feeling more satisfied, than the upward comparison or congruent distraction groups. Thus, comparison and distraction can improve well-being when directed towards emotion congruent and incongruent art, respectively.     

Causal judgements about two causal candidates: Accounting for occurrences,estimating strength,and the importance of interaction judgements

When two possible causes of an outcome are under consideration, contingency information concerns each possible combination of presence and absence of the two causes with occurrences and nonoccurrences of the outcome. White (2008) proposed that such judgements could be predicted by a weighted averaging model integrating these kinds of contingency information. The weights in the model are derived from the hypothesis that causal judgements seek to meet two main aims, accounting for occurrences of the outcome and estimating the strengths of the causes. Here it is shown that the model can explain many but not all relevant published findings. The remainder can be explained by reasoning about interactions between the two causes, by scenario-specific effects, and by variations in cell weight depending on quantity of available information. An experiment is reported that supports this argument. The review and experimental results support the case for a cognitive model of causal judgement in which different kinds of contingency information are utilised to satisfy particular aims of the judgement process.     

Defensive emotions and evaluative judgements: Sensitivity to anger and fear predicts moral judgements,whereas sensitivity to disgust predicts aesthetic judgements

Aesthetic and moral evaluations engage appetitive and defensive emotions. While the role played by pleasure in positive aesthetic and moral judgements has been extensively researched, little is known about how defensive emotions influence negative aesthetic and moral judgements. Specifically, it is unknown which defensive emotions such judgements tap into, and whether both kinds of judgement share a common emotional root. Here, we investigated how participants' individual sensitivity to disgust, fear, anger and sadness predicted subjective judgements of aesthetic and moral stimuli. Bayesian modelling revealed that participants who were more sensitive to anger and fear found conventional and moral transgressions more wrong. In contrast, participants who were more sensitive to disgust disliked asymmetrical geometric patterns and untidy rooms more. These findings suggest that aesthetic and moral evaluations engage multiple defensive emotions, not just disgust, and that they may rely on different defensive emotions as part of their computational mechanism.     

Context, remember-know recognition judgements, and ROC parameters

Recent work (e.g., Dunn, 2004; Heathcote, 2003) has questioned the necessity of postulating two processes to explain recognition memory. As part of this trend, strength theories of the remember-know methodology have gained in support. We present three experiments with pictorial material in which we force participants to use differential contextual information at test. Participants were required to give remember-know judgements and confidence ratings for each test stimulus. Hits, false alarms, remember-know data, and discrimination indices indicated systematic variations as a function of the availability and use of contextual information. Moreover, when we normalised the receiver operating characteristic data in terms of z-scores, the slopes were lower than 1 and slightly concave. Additionally, we computed the same set of statistical indices suggested by Wixted and Stretch (2004), with mixed results. Overall, we think that the data support a two-factor theory of remember-know and recognition, although many results fit well signal detection views of the task. Finally, the idea that remember and know responses are pure manifestations of recollection and familiarity seems difficult to sustain. We think that a productive use of the remember-know methodology involves the minimisation of the bias factors that may contaminate the responses, in addition to the introduction of the experimental manipulations needed to promote recollective and/or familiarity processes.     

Social categorization,visual cues,and social judgements

Recent research on social cognition suggests that lifelike visual and vocal information about a person may strongly mediate the impact of prior social categorical knowledge on social judgements. Other research, however, on the contribution of visual cues to impression formation, suggests that they have relatively little impact. This study sought to resolve these conflicting findings by examining the effect of visual cues on social judgements when subjects possess prior social categorical knowledge varying in salience to the experimental task. Videotaped target interviews were monitored by observers in either sound and vision or sound only, and measures were taken of the targets' perceived personality, their ‘actual’ and ‘predicted’ social performance, and social acceptance by observers. Whilst salience of categorization strongly influenced the quality of judgements, visual cues had little if any effect. However, visual cues strongly influenced subjects' confidence in all three sets of judgements, sound and vision subjects being consistently more confident than their sound only counterparts. The findings are discussed in relation to previous research in both social cognition and visual cues.     

Justice judgements,school failure,and adolescent deviant behaviour

Background. The current paper is based on two different approaches. One is the relational model of authority (Tyler & Lind, 1992), which addresses the effects of justice perceptions on the legitimacy of authorities and behavioural compliance. The other is Emler and Reicher's theory (1995, 2005), which explains the involvement of adolescents in delinquency through their relationship with the institutional authorities of society. Aims. To provide empirical evidence for the linkage of these perspectives, analysing the relationship between justice perceptions about teachers and the involvement of adolescents in deviant behaviour. Our hypotheses are that teachers’ justice is negatively related with deviant behaviour and that this relationship is mediated through the evaluation of institutional authorities, after controlling for school failure. Sample. Three hundred and ninety adolescents aged between 14 and 17 years. Methods. Participants completed the following scales: perceptions of justice about teachers, evaluation of institutional authorities, and deviant behaviour. Data were examined through correlation and bootstrap analyses. Results. Justice judgments about teachers were negatively related with deviant behaviour, and this relationship was partially mediated by the evaluation of institutional authorities, even after controlling for school failure. However, procedural justice revealed a much stronger relationship with deviance, compared to distributive justice. Conclusions. As predicted, these results suggest that when adolescents perceive school authorities as fair, other institutional authorities are likely to be perceived in a similar way and the more those authorities are positively evaluated, the less often adolescents engage in deviant conduct. Results are discussed according to the theories underlying our hypothesis. Directions for future research are suggested.     

Pychoanalysis and art, Freud and Leonardo.

Freud was the first to apply psychoanalysis to art, choosing for his subject the life and work of Leonardo da Vinci. Observing Leonardo's partly fused image of the Virgin and St. Anne, he inferred that the artist had depicted his two mothers, his biological mother and his stepmother. This very early analytic discourse on parent loss and adoption changed the course of the interpretation of art. Freud explored the psychology of art, the artist, and aesthetic appreciation. Confronting the age-old enigma of the Mona Lisa, he proposed a daring solution to the riddle of the sphinxlike smile of this icon of art. His paper prefigures concepts of narcissism, homosexuality, parenting, and sublimation. Lacking modern methodology and theory, Freud's pioneering insights overshadow his naive errors. In this fledgling inquiry, based on a childhood screen memory and limited knowledge of Leonardo's artistic and scientific contributions, Freud identified with this Renaissance genius in his own self-analytic and creative endeavor.     

Relationships between judgements of the complexity,pleasingness and interestingness of music

Forty unfamiliar, one-minute samples of modern jazz were rated by 132 undergraduates for judged complexity, pleasingness and interestingness, in a between-subjects design. Pleasingness and interestingness were positively correlated and both were decreasing linear functions of complexity, although the correlation between interestingness and complexity was low and only marginally significant. It appears that pleasingness acts as a suppressor on the interestingness/complexity correlation: with pleasingness partialled out the correlation was positive and highly significant. Partialling had only small effects on the other correlations. Results suggest that techniques used previously to study non-musical stimuli may also be applicable to music.     

Outcome additivity, elemental processing and blocking in human causality judgements

Informing participants in a causal judgement task that outcomes are additive can increase blocking effects (Experiment 1). Outcome additivity information emphasizes the fact that the outcome following a compound is the sum of the effects of its elements. We suggest that the effect of providing outcome additivity information is to encourage elemental processing and thereby enhance blocking. Experiment 2 showed that blocking could be enhanced by factors encouraging elemental processing, and Experiment 3 demonstrated that blocking was reduced by manipulating the visual presentation of cues to encourage configural processing. While these experiments do not rule out the role of inference in causal judgement tasks, the results are most parsimoniously explained by associative accounts that allow flexibility in the encoding of compound cues.     

Quantity evaluations in Yudja: judgements,language and cultural practice

Synthese - In this paper we explore the interpretation of quantity expressions in Yudja, an indigenous language spoken in the Amazonian basin, showing that while the language allows reference to...     

Discounting in causality and covariation judgements

In two experiments, humans were asked to judge the strength of a moderate contingency between a cue and an outcome in the presence of a second strong contingency between another cue and the outcome. The first experiment replicated the discounting effect whereby a strong contingency causes subjects to reduce or discount judgements of a moderate contingency. This experiment used a video-game procedure in which subjects camouflaged a tank to make it safe from mines. The second causal cue was the presence or absence of a spotter plane. Experiment 1 also ruled out the possibility that judgements might be determined by the number of co-occurrences of the cue and outcome as opposed to the level of contingency. The second experiment used an abstract scenario in which discounting was demonstrated when subjects were asked to judge the relationship between the occurrence of geometric objects. The instructions were neutral to discourage causal hypotheses. These results support the notion that judgements result from associative or connectionist processes and not from a two-step cognitive retrospective process in which an estimate of covariation is calculated between cue and outcome and then in a second step this information is used in a normative manner when a decision is made.     

Color preferences, extraversion, and neuroticism of art students.

Color preferences of 190 art students (G?tz & G?tz, 1974, 1975) were compared with the corresponding scores on extraversion (E) and neuroticism (N). It was found that the preferences of a group of 27 highly gifted young artists were different from preferences of average and less gifted Ss who had little or no artistic practice. In the latter group extraverts and ambiverts mainly preferred primary and secondary colors (light clear and dark clear tones included), while introverts preferred tertiary colors (earth colors) and achromatics. However, in the group of highly gifted Ss no significant differences between positive and negative rankings in both color categories were found. Neuroticism had no effect on color preferences; this holds for introverts and extraverts and for each single color.     

Using a virtual reality cricket simulator to explore the effects of pressure,competition anxiety on batting performance in cricket

Virtual reality (VR) has created opportunities to innovatively re-imagine the way we examine the relations between pressure, competition anxiety and performance. This study aimed to determine the efficacy of VR as a means of measuring the effects of competition anxiety when pressure manipulations are applied while participants bat in a cricket batting VR simulator. The twenty-eight male participants who took part in two experiments were divided into a high (14, mean age: 22.94, SD: 5.4) and a low skill group (14; mean age: 23.55, SD: 9.9). The aim of the first experiment was to validate the VR simulator as a tool that could capture differences in batting performance between a high and low skilled group. The results showed that high skill participants not only scored significantly higher run rates than low skill participants, but they outperformed the low skill group in all performance measures including higher incidences of correct foot placements that reflect better anticipatory responses. Having established the VR batting simulator as being a reliable tool for capturing batting dynamics, experiment 2 aimed to explore the effects of a pressure manipulation on competition anxiety and batting performance. All measures of competition anxiety were significantly greater for both groups in the high-pressure condition compared to the two low-pressure conditions (p < 0.001). The magnitude of this effect was greater in the low skill group for cognitive (0.59) and somatic (0.794) anxiety. Despite anxiety levels significantly increasing in the high-pressure condition, no significant negative changes to batting performance were found for either group, with both groups actually demonstrating performance improvements. Overall, the findings show how a cricket batting virtual reality simulator can be used as a tool to measure the effects of pressure on competition anxiety and batting performance in tasks involving dynamic skill execution.     

Discriminability and central intermittency in same-different judgements

Four sets of paired visual stimuli (OO, XX, XO, or OX) were judged by 48 subjects to be either “same” or “different.” Decision latencies of the same and different judgement were studied as a function of the inter-stimulus interval (ISI). In Experiments I and II, in which stimulus durations were 70 millisec., decision latencies showed marked increases when the ISI was reduced to 100 millisec., but in Experiments III and IV, in which the stimulus durations were only 40 millisec., comparable increases did not occur until the ISI was reduced to 50 millisec. These increases were more marked for “same” than for “different” judgements, although overall decision latencies were generally shorter for “same” judgements. The effects of varying ISIs and stimulus durations are interpreted in terms of masking; they fail to support an hypothesis of central intermittency.     

Non-verbal and verbal judgements of length invariance by young children.

One hundred and fifty non-conservers in length were assessed for their ability to make a non-verbal judgement of length invariance on a task employing a train-transfer design in which the stimuli were pairs of pencils. Seventy per cent of the children from the group who had to respond to length equality as opposed to inequality made the correct invariance judgement and could, moreover, characterize their choices in invariance language (e.g. 'same size') whilst still failing the standard verbal task in which such phrases were used by the experimenter. This is regarded as supporting the hypothesis that the non-conserver's linguistic difficulty is not with framing the verbal judgement but in interpreting a question which he believes has to be interpreted unidimensionally in such a context of perceptual change.