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10.3.2 Psychological Models of Human Aesthetics
Conspicuously missing from most work by those pursuing machine evaluation that
mimics human aesthetics are models of how natural aesthetic evaluation occurs.
Rudolf Arnheim, Daniel Berlyne, and Colin Martindale are three researchers who
stand out for their attempts to shape the findings of empirical aesthetics into gen-
eral aesthetic models that predict and explain. Each has left a legacy of significant
breadth and depth that may inform computational aesthetic evaluation research. The
following sections provide an introduction to their contributions.
10.3.2.1 Arnheim—Gestalt and Aesthetics
If one had to identify a single unifying theme for Arnheim it would have to be the
notion of perception as cognition. Perception isn't something that happens to the
brain when events in the world are passively received through the senses. Perception
is an activity of the brain and nothing short of a form of cognition. And it is this
perceptual cognition that serves as the engine for gestalt phenomena.
First written in 1954 and then completely revised in 1974, Arnheim's topic Art
and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye established the relevance
of gestalt phenomena as art and design principles (Arnheim 1974 ). The law of präg-
nanz in gestalt states that the process of perceptual cognition endeavours to order
experience into wholes that maximise clarity of structure. From this law come the
notions of closure, proximity, containment, grouping, and so on now taught as de-
sign principles (Wertheimer 2007 ).
The neurological mechanisms behind these principles were not, and still are not,
well understood. Arnheim wrote of forces and fields as existing both as psycholog-
ical and physical entities; the physical aspects being neurological phenomenon in
the brain itself. Some have suggested it is more useful to take these terms metaphor-
ically to describe the dynamic tensions that art exercises (Cupchik 2007 ).
Arnheim's theory of aesthetics is much more descriptive than normative. Nev-
ertheless, those interested in computational aesthetic evaluation have much to take
away with them. That perception is an active cognitive process, and that the gestalt
whole is something more than the sum of the parts, is now taken by most as a given.
And the difference between maximising clarity of structure and maximising sim-
plicity of structure is a nuance worthy of attention (Verstegen 2007 ).
10.3.2.2 Berlyne—Arousal Potential and Preferences
Daniel E. Berlyne published broadly in psychology, but his work of note here
regards physiological arousal and aesthetic experience as a neurological process
(Konecni 1978 ). One of Berlyne's significant contributions is the concept of arousal
potential and its relationship to hedonic response .
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