Jacobs, RH, Haak, KV, Thumfart, S et al. (3 more authors) (2016) Aesthetics by Numbers: Links between Perceived Texture Qualities and Computed Visual Texture Properties. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 10. 343. 343-. ISSN 1662-5161
Abstract
Our world is filled with texture. For the human visual system, this is an important source of information for assessing environmental and material properties. Indeed-and presumably for this reason-the human visual system has regions dedicated to processing textures. Despite their abundance and apparent relevance, only recently the relationships between texture features and high-level judgments have captured the interest of mainstream science, despite long-standing indications for such relationships. In this study, we explore such relationships, as these might be used to predict perceived texture qualities. This is relevant, not only from a psychological/neuroscience perspective, but also for more applied fields such as design, architecture, and the visual arts. In two separate experiments, observers judged various qualities of visual textures such as beauty, roughness, naturalness, elegance, and complexity. Based on factor analysis, we find that in both experiments, ~75% of the variability in the judgments could be explained by a two-dimensional space, with axes that are closely aligned to the beauty and roughness judgments. That a two-dimensional judgment space suffices to capture most of the variability in the perceived texture qualities suggests that observers use a relatively limited set of internal scales on which to base various judgments, including aesthetic ones. Finally, for both of these judgments, we determined the relationship with a large number of texture features computed for each of the texture stimuli. We find that the presence of lower spatial frequencies, oblique orientations, higher intensity variation, higher saturation, and redness correlates with higher beauty ratings. Features that captured image intensity and uniformity correlated with roughness ratings. Therefore, a number of computational texture features are predictive of these judgments. This suggests that perceived texture qualities-including the aesthetic appreciation-are sufficiently universal to be predicted-with reasonable accuracy-based on the computed feature content of the textures.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016 Jacobs, Haak, Thumfart, Renken, Henson and Cornelissen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution and reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
Keywords: | aesthetics; beauty; descriptive; evaluative; features; roughness; semantic differential; texture perception |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Mechanical Engineering (Leeds) > Institute of Engineering Systems and Design (iESD) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EU - European Union FP6 043157 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 08 Sep 2016 09:16 |
Last Modified: | 23 Jun 2023 22:13 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00343 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Frontiers Media |
Identification Number: | 10.3389/fnhum.2016.00343 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:104409 |