Portrait hemispheric laterality measured using pupil diameter and aesthetic judgments.

Hayes, Tarick; Muday, Jeffrey A.; Schirillo, James A.

doi:10.1037/a0031634

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Johnson, Muday, and Schirillo (2010), for instance, found that pupil size increased with the pleasantness of paintings. Other researchers found similar results (Blackburn & Schirillo, 2012), or, if unpleasant pictures were also included in the stimulus set, observed a -shaped relationship (Bradley et al, 2008; Hayes, Muday, & Schirillo, 2013; Powell & Schirillo, 2011).…”

supporting

confidence: 55%

Do fluency-induced pupillary responses reflect aesthetic affect?

Elschner¹,

Hübner²,

Dambacher³

2018

Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts

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Recently, Kuchinke, Trapp, Jacobs, and Leder (2009) used pupillary peak dilations (PDs) to test the hypothesis that fluent picture processing elicits aesthetic affects. They used reproductions of cubist pictures of different abstractness as stimuli, which was assumed to modulate processing fluency. As a result, less abstract pictures were not only processed more fluently and preferred, they also produced larger PDs than more abstract ones. This was interpreted as support of their hypothesis. The aim of the present study was to replicate and generalize these results with an improved method and by adding expressionist pictures, which covered a relatively large range of abstractness. In the first experiment, where art style was blocked, there were no clear results. Therefore, the authors randomized art style in the second experiment. This time PDs increased with decreasing abstractness, even though significantly only for the expressionist pictures. However, there was no relation between preference and PDs. Thus, although they also observed a covariation between abstractness and pupil size, the data do not support the idea that PDs reflect fluency-induced aesthetic affect.Keywords: aesthetic preference, emotion, pupil size, processing fluencyThe question of why we like some pictures or objects more than others has been debated in philosophy for hundreds of years and was one of the first investigated in experimental psychology (Fechner, 1876). Whereas some theorists assumed that aesthetic preference is determined by object properties such as symmetry, balance, proportion, and prototypicality (cf. Palmer, Schloss, & Sammartino, 2013), others proposed a subjectivist view, that is, that aesthetic experience depends on the qualities of the perceiver (Reber, Schwarz, & Winkielman, 2004). Obviously, these two accounts do not exclude each other. Accordingly, recent models have integrated both views into a single model (e.g., Leder, Belke, Oeberst, & Augustin, 2004).A prominent mechanism demonstrating the dependency of aesthetic preference on the quality and state of the perceiver is processing fluency (Reber et al., 2004;Winkielman, Schwarz, Fazendeiro, & Reber, 2003). It is assumed that a stimulus that can be processed fluently by an observer produces a positive affect because it signals successful recognition and error-free processing. Most interestingly, high fluency usually also produces positive evaluations of the processed object.An important question in this respect is whether affective responses are indeed elicited by fluent processing and, if so, to what extent they are involved in aesthetic judgments, especially for artworks. Recently Kuchinke et al. (2009) tried to answer this question using pupillary responses. Research shows that pupillometry can well be used to examine emotional responses, because pupils dilate if people are excited (Bradley, Miccoli, Escrig, & Lang, 2008;Henderson, Bradley, & Lang, 2014;Partala & Surakka, 2003;Siegle, Ichikawa, & Steinhauer, 2008;Võ et al., 2008). Indeed, in several studies i...

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supporting

confidence: 55%

Do fluency-induced pupillary responses reflect aesthetic affect?

Elschner¹,

Hübner²,

Dambacher³

2018

Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts

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“…Stimuli causing emotional arousal can be revealed by changes in pupillary diameter. For instance, pupillary dilatation reflects preference for political candidates (Barlow, 1969), alcoholic beverages (Beall, 1977) and visual arts (e.g., Rembrandt’s paintings) (Elschner, Hübner & Dambacher, 2017; Hayes, Muday & Schirillo, 2013; Kuchinke et al., 2009; Powell & Schirillo, 2011; Schirillo, 2014; Alvarez et al., 2015) allowing to predict people’s tastes. Images of human faces elicit a pupillary reaction as well: Angry or fearful facial expressions and images of females increase pupil sizes, in contrast to happy faces and males’ images (Allard, Wadlinger & Isaacowitz, 2010; Blackburn & Schirillo, 2012; Bradley et al., 2008; Chiesa et al., 2015; Goldinger, He & Papesh, 2009; Kret et al., 2013; Lichtenstein-Vidne et al., 2017; Porter, Hood & Troscianko, 2006; Schrammel et al., 2009; Vanderhasselt et al., 2018; Wu, Laeng & Magnussen, 2012; Yrttiaho et al., 2017; Kret, 2017; Hammerschmidt et al., 2018).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cortical modulation of pupillary function: systematic review

Peinkhofer

Knudsen

Moretti

et al. 2019

PeerJ

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Background The pupillary light reflex is the main mechanism that regulates the pupillary diameter; it is controlled by the autonomic system and mediated by subcortical pathways. In addition, cognitive and emotional processes influence pupillary function due to input from cortical innervation, but the exact circuits remain poorly understood. We performed a systematic review to evaluate the mechanisms behind pupillary changes associated with cognitive efforts and processing of emotions and to investigate the cerebral areas involved in cortical modulation of the pupillary light reflex. Methodology We searched multiple databases until November 2018 for studies on cortical modulation of pupillary function in humans and non-human primates. Of 8,809 papers screened, 258 studies were included. Results Most investigators focused on pupillary dilatation and/or constriction as an index of cognitive and emotional processing, evaluating how changes in pupillary diameter reflect levels of attention and arousal. Only few tried to correlate specific cerebral areas to pupillary changes, using either cortical activation models (employing micro-stimulation of cortical structures in non-human primates) or cortical lesion models (e.g., investigating patients with stroke and damage to salient cortical and/or subcortical areas). Results suggest the involvement of several cortical regions, including the insular cortex (Brodmann areas 13 and 16), the frontal eye field (Brodmann area 8) and the prefrontal cortex (Brodmann areas 11 and 25), and of subcortical structures such as the locus coeruleus and the superior colliculus. Conclusions Pupillary dilatation occurs with many kinds of mental or emotional processes, following sympathetic activation or parasympathetic inhibition. Conversely, pupillary constriction may occur with anticipation of a bright stimulus (even in its absence) and relies on a parasympathetic activation. All these reactions are controlled by subcortical and cortical structures that are directly or indirectly connected to the brainstem pupillary innervation system.

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“…Nevertheless, the accumulated evidence for gender differences [188], a possible change of bias over the life span [189], the mood-dependency of aesthetic preferences [190][191][192][193], and the involvement of culturally acquired techniques, such as reading direction in aesthetic preferences ( [194][195][196][197], for review see Reference [198]) all indicate against a simple explanation, such as innate asymmetry of hemisphere specialization. However, and although speculative, it may be the case that aesthetic preferences for portrait directionality, as well as for horizontal-facing objects, are also partially influenced by the brain's asymmetric frequency tuning (see Figure 2, panel F).…”

Section: Aestheticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Brain’s Asymmetric Frequency Tuning: Asymmetric Behavior Originates from Asymmetric Perception

et al. 2020

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To construct a coherent multi-modal percept, vertebrate brains extract low-level features (such as spatial and temporal frequencies) from incoming sensory signals. However, because frequency processing is lateralized with the right hemisphere favouring low frequencies while the left favours higher frequencies, this introduces asymmetries between the hemispheres. Here, we describe how this lateralization shapes the development of several cognitive domains, ranging from visuo-spatial and numerical cognition to language, social cognition, and even aesthetic appreciation, and leads to the emergence of asymmetries in behaviour. We discuss the neuropsychological and educational implications of these emergent asymmetries and suggest future research approaches.

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Portrait hemispheric laterality measured using pupil diameter and aesthetic judgments.

Cited by 6 publications

References 40 publications

Do fluency-induced pupillary responses reflect aesthetic affect?

Do fluency-induced pupillary responses reflect aesthetic affect?

Cortical modulation of pupillary function: systematic review

The Brain’s Asymmetric Frequency Tuning: Asymmetric Behavior Originates from Asymmetric Perception

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