Perceiving and evaluating visual aesthetics

This category deals with one of the most basic questions in the field of visual aesthetics: How people process and evaluate visual stimuli in aesthetic terms? Detailed accounts of such processes are likely not specific to HCI, and thus have been and probably will be left to researchers in more basic research fields. Findings from such research are presented below to inform the readers about developments in this field. One of the most influential accounts of aesthetic processes was articulated by Norman (2004), who suggested that aesthetic perceptions and evaluations can be explained by considering cognitive and emotional processes at three different levels, which he termed visceral, behavioral and reflective. Visceral reactions to stimuli in the environment (including aesthetic stimuli) have developed to a large extent through evolutionary mechanisms, are performed very rapidly at almost instinct level, with little or no cognitive processing (Ortony et al., 2005). Thus, reactions at this level are quite automatic. ��The other two levels are characterized by increasingly more elaborated and distinct motivational, emotional and cognitive structures and processes, as well as by slower reactions to stimuli, tendency towards more optimal (as opposed to satisficing) responses and greater individual variability (Ortony et al., 2005).�

Studies of aesthetic reaction have been performed on all levels (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi 1991; Leder et al., 2004;Winkielman et al., 2006; Jacobsen, 2010).� Low level research is characterized by processes that last a few tenths of a second. At this level, research suggests that the evaluative aesthetic judgment involves a two-step process of an early impression formation and a later evaluative categorization process (H�fel and Jacobsen, 2007). Another finding at this level argues for a positive effect of prototypicality on aesthetic evaluations through the ease (fluency) of information processing (Winkielman et al., 2006). In the field of HCI, several studies have examined aesthetic evaluations after very short exposure to web pages. One of the differences between the basic research and HCI research at this level is that the latter usually involves more ecologically representative (i.e., “real”) stimuli. Lindgaard and colleagues (Lindgaard et al., 2011) suggest that stable aesthetic evaluations can be formed even after being exposed to a design for only 50 milliseconds. While some research questions the robustness of these findings, other research supports the notion that we do not need more than half a second to form first, and stable, aesthetic impressions of the web page (Lindgaard et al., 2006; Tractinsky et al., 2006) �����

Research on aesthetic processing at higher levels involves more elaborated considerations. In general, Leder et al. (2004) have proposed a model of aesthetic appreciation and aesthetic judgment. The model includes various categories of aesthetic processing, including “automatic” and “deliberate” stages and cognitive and emotional reactions.� Although studying higher-level processes of aesthetic evaluations may be of interest to the HCI community, research thus far has concentrated more on the role of aesthetic processing as a mediator between design stimuli and outcome variables such as user engagement and trust (e.g., Hartmann et al., 2008, Lindgaard et al., 2011). Similarly, Thuring & Mahlke (2007) propose a model which integrates the effects of perceived system qualities, including visual aesthetics, on emotions and on appraisal of the system. Research on more long-term, reflective aesthetic evaluation is even scarcer. An example for such research in a general context is Csikszentmihalyi’s (Csikszentmihalyi 1991) study on household objects. Recently studies on aesthetic aspects of interactive systems began to adopt a more time-dependent approach (Schaik and Ling, 2008) and to employ longitudinal methods (e.g.,Karapanos et al., 2010).

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16