Title
The small step toward asymmetry: Aesthetic judgment of broken symmetries
Abstract
Symmetry and complexity both affect the aesthetic judgment of abstract patterns. However, although beauty tends to be associated with symmetry, there are indications that small asymmetries can also be beautiful. We investigated the influence of small deviations from symmetry on people's aesthetic liking for abstract patterns. Breaking symmetry not only decreased patterns' symmetry but also increased their complexity. While an increase of complexity normally results in a higher liking, we found that even a small decrease of symmetry has a strong effect, such that patterns with slightly broken symmetries were significantly less liked than fully symmetric ones.
Keywords
aestheticssymmetrybroken symmetryasymmetrycomplexityliking
Object type
Language
English [eng]
Persistent identifier
https://phaidra.univie.ac.at/o:502630
Appeared in
Title
i-Perception
Volume
4
Issue
5
From page
361
To page
364
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Date issued
2013
Access rights
University of Vienna | Universitätsring 1 | 1010 Vienna | T +43-1-4277-0