Question 3- Explain Fechner's Concept Of "Diversity Of Unity" And How It Is Incorporated In Modern Theories Of Aesthetic Experience

Question 1

Who is Fechner?

Answer 1

-Considered to be the founder of scientific aesthetics

Question 2

What is Diversity in Unity?

Answer 2

• Diversity looks at the colour(s) of the objects being observed
• Unity refers to the patterns of the objects
• Looks at how these come together to form a pleasant, or unpleasant, aesthetic experience

-Idea behind concept:
•Optimum liking will be achieved when there is a medium degree of arousal between the unity and diversity of stimuli
•E.g. objects with multiple areas stop boredom but too much complexity, either in the colours or patterns, can be too complex and decrease the liking of it

Question 3

Modern theories it’s incorporated in

Answer 3

-Berlyne’s new experimental aesthetics
•looks at 4 collative features: complexity, familiarity, redundancy and ambiguity
•hypothesised that the arousal potential had an inverted u-shape relationship with the liking of a stimulus. One would like a stimulus more when they had a medium degree of arousal, but when arousal increased liking of the stimulus would decrease

Question 4

Example studies

Answer 4

-Berlyne (1974):
•PPs preferred more complex stimuli compared to simple stimuli

-Martindale (1990):
•suggested perceived meaningfulness predicts aesthetic pleasure better than complexity

Question 5

Processing fluency

Answer 5

-Can be suggested processing fluency embraces diversity and unity
•P.F is the speed and accuracy of stimulus processing, can be affected by figure ground contrast
~if an object has high figure ground it can be processed fluently. If that object has low figure ground or has too much pattern it will be harder to process and be liked less