Intense Beauty Requires Intense Pleasure

2020

Psychon Bull Rev

Self Cite

Can people track several pleasures? In everyday life, pleasing stimuli rarely appear in isolation. Yet, experiments on aesthetic pleasure usually present only one image at a time. Here, we ask whether people can reliably report the pleasure of either of two images seen in a single glimpse. Participants (N = 13 in the original; +25 in the preregistered replication) viewed 36 Open Affective Standardized Image Set (OASIS) images that span the entire range of pleasure and beauty. On each trial, the observer saw two images, side by side, for 200 ms. An arrow cue pointed, randomly, left, right, or bidirectionally. Left or right indicated which image (the target) to rate while ignoring the other (the distractor); bidirectional requested rating the combined pleasure of both images. In half the blocks, the cue came before the images (precuing). Otherwise, it came after (postcuing). Precuing allowed the observer to ignore the distractor, while postcuing demanded tracking both images. Finally, we obtained single-pleasure ratings for each image shown alone. Our replication confirms the original study. People have unbiased access to their felt pleasure from each image and the average of both. Furthermore, the variance of the observer's report is similar whether reporting the pleasure of one image or the average pleasure of two. The undiminished variance for reports of the average pleasure of two images indicates either that the underlying pleasure variances are highly correlated, or, more likely, that the variance arises in the common reporting process. In brief, observers can faithfully track at least two visual pleasures.

Section: Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Single-pleasure and Reliabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Tracking two pleasures

2020

Psychon Bull Rev

Self Cite

“…We also test whether people report the combined felt pleasure of four images as the mean across felt pleasures for the displayed images. While our previous study (Brielmann & Pelli, 2019) laid the groundwork for the current one, the use of only two images at a time did not allow us to distinguish mean-bias effects from direct contrast or assimilation effects. Here, we use the same procedure, to ease comparison, but now we can explicitly test whether subjective pleasure reporting is biased toward the mean, like the reporting of objective object properties.…”

Section: Current Studymentioning

confidence: 97%

The pleasure of multiple images

Atten Percept Psychophys

2020

Self Cite

How many pleasures can you track? In a previous study, we showed that people can simultaneously track the pleasure they experience from two images. Here, we push further, probing the individual and combined pleasures felt from seeing four images in one glimpse. Participants (N = 25) viewed 36 images spanning the entire range of pleasure. Each trial presented an array of four images, one in each quadrant of the screen, for 200 ms. On 80% of the trials, a central line cue pointed, randomly, at some screen corner either before (precue) or after (postcue) the images were shown. The cue indicated which image (the target) to rate while ignoring the others (distractors). On the other 20% of trials, an X cue requested a rating of the combined pleasure of all four images. Later, for baseline reference, we obtained a single-pleasure rating for each image shown alone. When precued, participants faithfully reported the pleasure of the target. When postcued, however, the mean ratings of images that are intensely pleasurable when seen alone (pleasure >4.5 on a 1–9 scale) dropped below baseline. Regardless of cue timing, the rating of the combined pleasure of four images was a linear transform of the average baseline pleasures of all four images. Thus, while people can faithfully track two pleasures, they cannot track four. Instead, the pleasure of otherwise above-medium-pleasure images is diminished, mimicking the effect of a distracting task.

“…Stimuli. We selected the five most beautiful image from the open affective standardized image set (OASIS; Kurd, Lozano, & Banaji, 2017) based on a previous study conducted by our lab (Brielmann & Pelli, 2019), as well as three images with median beauty ratings. The OASIS consists of a diverse set of stock images.…”

Section: Experiments 1a: Rating Images Of Varying Beautymentioning

confidence: 99%

Beauty, the feeling

Nuzzo

2020

Preprint

Many philosophers and psychologists have made claims about the feelings in an experience of beauty. Here, we test how well these claims match the feelings that people report while looking at an image or listening to music that is beautiful to them, or recalling a personal experience of beauty. We conducted ten experiments (total n = 851) spanning three nations (US, UK, and India). Across nations and modalities, we find that top-rated beauty experiences are strongly characterized by six dimensions: intense pleasure, an impression of universality, the wish to continue the experience, perceived harmony in variety, exceeding expectation, and meaningfulness. Other frequently proposed beauty characteristics — like surprise, desire to understand, and mind wandering — are uncorrelated with feeling beauty. When explicitly asked, participants in all countries report that beauty is closely related to pleasure, found in nature rather than art, influenced by mood, and a form of communication. A remembered beautiful experience was typically active and social, like a family holiday, quite unlike the passive solitary appraisal of art emphasized in aesthetics. Our data align well with Kant (r = 0.74) and psychological theories that emphasize pleasure, and reject theories that emphasize information seeking. These six dimensions characterizing how individuals feel beauty emerge from the reports of hundreds of people seeing, hearing, or remembering something beautiful to them.