Cued Attention and Aesthetic Evaluation of Abstract Unfamiliar Patterns G Rampone, A Makin, M Bertamini |
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Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom
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| The link between attention and affect has been studied before, in particular in relation to the distinction between targets and distracters, and in relation to social cues. It has been suggested that simple cuing of attention does not in itself changes the evaluation of a stimulus (Bayliss et al., 2006 Psychonomic bulletin & review, 13, 1061-1066). However, we decided to explore in more detail the effect of cuing because exogenous cues may be more effective than endogenous cues, and because the role of eye movements has not been studied before. We used a variation of Posner’s paradigm in which participants’ attention was cued to one side of the screen by a flashing light, and observers performed a saccade. Our targets were abstract unfamiliar patterns that varied in degree of regularity. As expected, the more regular patterns were preferred over the random ones. Moreover, we found some preliminary evidence that the target at the valid location was evaluated more positively than the target at the invalid location. |
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