tailieunhanh - Beyond the Golden Section and Normative Aesthetics: Why Do Individuals Differ so Much in Their Aesthetic Preferences for Rectangles?

Consider my parents. My mother did not know any geomorphology or landscape ecology. Yet she enjoyed her familiar, Southern US rural land- scapes. My father enjoyed the fertility of the soils in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia; he admired a good field. On visits around, he would take a spade and turn the soil to see whether it might make a good garden. He always knew what watershed he was in, what crops were growing where. He loved a good rain. Both enjoyed the changing seasons, the dogwood and redbud in the hills in the spring, the brilliant and subtle colours. | Psychology of Aesthetics Creativity and the Arts 2010 Vol. 4 No. 2 113-126 2010 American Psychological Association 1931-3896 10 DOI a0017316 Beyond the Golden Section and Normative Aesthetics Why Do Individuals Differ so Much in Their Aesthetic Preferences for Rectangles I. C. McManus Richard Cook and Amy Hunt University College London Interest in the experimental aesthetics of rectangles originates in the studies of Fechner 1876 which investigated Zeising s suggestion that Golden Section ratios determine the aesthetic appeal of great works of art. Although Fechner s studies are often cited to support the centrality of the Golden Section a century of subsequent experimental work suggests it has little normative role in rectangle preferences. However rectangles are still of interest to experimental aesthetics and McManus 1980 used a paired comparison method to show that although population preferences are weak there are strong stable statistically robust and very varied individual preferences. The present study measured rectangle preferences in 79 participants particularly assessing their relationship to a wide range of background measures of individual differences. Once again weak population preferences but strong and varied individual rectangle preferences were found and computer presentation of stimuli with detailed analyses of response times confirmed the coherent nature of aesthetic preferences for rectangles. Q-mode factor analysis found two main factors labeled square and rectangle with participants showing different combinations of positive and negative loadings on these factors. However the individual difference measures including Big Five personality traits Need for Cognition Tolerance of Ambiguity Schizotypy Vocational Types and Aesthetic Activities showed no correlation at all with rectangle preferences. Individual differences in rectangle preferences are a robust phenomenon that clearly requires explanation but at present their variability