A role for Gestalt principles of organisation in shaping preferences for non-natural spatial and dynamic patterns F Newell1, R Murtagh2, S Hutzler2 |
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1Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland |
| Cognitive models of categorisation processes have dominated our understanding of how preferences are shaped. It is argued that experience with faces and objects influences preferences such that the category prototype, or average, is the most preferred of the category set (e.g. Halberstadt & Rhodes, 2003, Psychological Bulletin & Review, 10, 149-56). This preference for the average is thought to occur as it best reflects how information is represented in memory, thus is ‘easy on the mind’ (Winkielman et al. 2006, Psychological Science, 9, 799-806). However, the role of more perceptual principles of information processing on determining our preferences is less well known. We investigated how perceptual organisation may influence preferences for patterns by manipulating the degree of ‘order’ in a continuum of static (Experiment 1) or dynamic (Experiment 2) dot patterns and asked participants to rate exemplars using a Likert scale. We found consistent effects across experiments, with greater preferences for more ordered static exemplars in which grouping principles of ‘proximity’ and ‘good continuation’ were maximised, and for more correlated motion in dynamic exemplars in which ‘common fate’ was maximised. Our findings suggest that Gestalt principles of perceptual organisation may play a significant role in shaping preferences for visual stimuli. |
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