Question 6- What Are "Collative Features" And How Do They Influence Aesthetic Judgement?

Question 1

What are collative features?

Answer 1

-Features proposed by Berlyne (1974) in the new experimental aesthetics theory
•They are the formal and structural properties of a stimulus which contributes to the arousal potential of a stimulus, which is related to the hedonic value/how much a stimulus is liked

Question 2

The four collative features

Answer 2

-Complexity
•How complex a stimulus is

-Redundancy
•How different and unique the stimulus is

-Ambiguity
•How open to interpretation the stimulus is

-Familiarity
•How familiar the stimulus is to the observer

Question 3

Complexity- Berlyne (1974)

Answer 3

-Looked at aesthetic perception of sounds in musicians and non- musicians

-Were played pieces of music with different amounts of information in and asked to rate each piece on:
•Simple-complex
•Uninteresting-interesting
•Ugly-beautiful
•Pleasing-displeasing

-Results:
•PPs preferred the more complex pieces and found them more interesting
•PPs found the intermediate music pieces to be more beautiful and pleasant

Question 4

Imamoglu (1999)

Answer 4

-Recruited students who did and didn’t study architecture to look at drawings of traditional and modern houses which varied in the complexity levels

-Asked to rate the houses on the scales:
•Beautiful-ugly
•Pleasant-unpleasant
•Liked-not liked
•Simple-complex
•Plain-ornate
•Familiar-unfamiliar

-Results:
•Houses of medium complexity were preferred over low and high complex houses
•Familiarity was high for houses of low and medium complexity
•At maximum complexity, familiarity and preference of houses decreased

Question 5

Results from the studies suggest…

Answer 5

• Complexity is related to aesthetic judgement in an inverted U-shape
• The more familiar one is with the stimulus, the more one likes it depending on the complexity, redundancy and ambiguity of it