The experience of beauty of living beings and artificial objects S Markovic, I Sole |
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Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, University of Belgrade, Serbia
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| The purpose of the present study was to compare the underlying structures of the subjective experience of beauty of two wide categories of objects – living beings and artificial objects. In Preliminary study 1 two sets of six photographs were selected: (a) living beings (humans, animals, plants) and (b) artificial objects (buildings, interiors and objects of everyday use). In Preliminary study 2 a set of eighty representative descriptors of the subjective experience of beauty was selected (e.g. pleasant, cute, magnificent etc). In the main study twenty-one participants judged two sets of stimuli using a check-list of eighty descriptors. Factor analyses extracted different dimensions for two categories. (a) Living beings: Fascination, Cuteness, Relaxation, Cheerfulness and Attractiveness; (b) Artificial objects: Fascination, Grandiosity, Sophistication and Good design. These results have shown that the Fascination was the only common dimension, while the others were category specific. The structure of the experience of beauty was more emotionally focused in the case of living beings (Cuteness, Relaxation, Cheerfulness and Attractiveness), whereas it was more focused to the perceptual and formal aspects of the artificial object’s beauty (Grandiosity, Sophistication, Good design). |
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