Aesthetic appeal influences visual search performance

Authors: Reppa, I. and McDougall, S.

Journal: Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics

Volume: 84

Issue: 8

Pages: 2483-2506

eISSN: 1943-393X

ISSN: 1943-3921

DOI: 10.3758/s13414-022-02567-3

Abstract:

Aesthetic appeal of a visual image can influence performance in time-critical tasks, even if it is irrelevant to the task. This series of experiments examined whether aesthetic appeal can act as an object attribute that guides visual search. If appeal enhances the salience of the targets pre-attentively, then appealing icons would lead to more efficient searches than unappealing targets and, conversely, appeal of distractors would reduce search efficiency. Three experiments (N = 112) examined how aesthetic appeal influences performance in a classic visual search task. In each experiment, participants completed 320 visual search trials, with icons varying in rated aesthetic appeal and either visual complexity (Experiments 1 and 2) of concreteness (Experiment 3) among two, four, eight, or 11 distractor icons. While target appeal did not influence search efficiency it sped up search times in all three experiments: appealing targets led to faster response time (RT) than unappealing targets across all experiments, and compared to neutral distractors, appealing distractors slowed search RT down. These findings are the first to show that an object’s aesthetic appeal influences visual search performance.

https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/37704/

Source: Scopus

Aesthetic appeal influences visual search performance.

Authors: Reppa, I. and McDougall, S.

Journal: Atten Percept Psychophys

Volume: 84

Issue: 8

Pages: 2483-2506

eISSN: 1943-393X

DOI: 10.3758/s13414-022-02567-3

Abstract:

Aesthetic appeal of a visual image can influence performance in time-critical tasks, even if it is irrelevant to the task. This series of experiments examined whether aesthetic appeal can act as an object attribute that guides visual search. If appeal enhances the salience of the targets pre-attentively, then appealing icons would lead to more efficient searches than unappealing targets and, conversely, appeal of distractors would reduce search efficiency. Three experiments (N = 112) examined how aesthetic appeal influences performance in a classic visual search task. In each experiment, participants completed 320 visual search trials, with icons varying in rated aesthetic appeal and either visual complexity (Experiments 1 and 2) of concreteness (Experiment 3) among two, four, eight, or 11 distractor icons. While target appeal did not influence search efficiency it sped up search times in all three experiments: appealing targets led to faster response time (RT) than unappealing targets across all experiments, and compared to neutral distractors, appealing distractors slowed search RT down. These findings are the first to show that an object's aesthetic appeal influences visual search performance.

https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/37704/

Source: PubMed

Aesthetic appeal influences visual search performance

Authors: Reppa, I. and McDougall, S.

Journal: ATTENTION PERCEPTION & PSYCHOPHYSICS

Volume: 84

Issue: 8

Pages: 2483-2506

eISSN: 1943-393X

ISSN: 1943-3921

DOI: 10.3758/s13414-022-02567-3

https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/37704/

Source: Web of Science (Lite)

Aesthetic appeal influences visual search performance.

Authors: Reppa, I. and McDougall, S.

Journal: Attention, perception & psychophysics

Volume: 84

Issue: 8

Pages: 2483-2506

eISSN: 1943-393X

ISSN: 1943-3921

DOI: 10.3758/s13414-022-02567-3

Abstract:

Aesthetic appeal of a visual image can influence performance in time-critical tasks, even if it is irrelevant to the task. This series of experiments examined whether aesthetic appeal can act as an object attribute that guides visual search. If appeal enhances the salience of the targets pre-attentively, then appealing icons would lead to more efficient searches than unappealing targets and, conversely, appeal of distractors would reduce search efficiency. Three experiments (N = 112) examined how aesthetic appeal influences performance in a classic visual search task. In each experiment, participants completed 320 visual search trials, with icons varying in rated aesthetic appeal and either visual complexity (Experiments 1 and 2) of concreteness (Experiment 3) among two, four, eight, or 11 distractor icons. While target appeal did not influence search efficiency it sped up search times in all three experiments: appealing targets led to faster response time (RT) than unappealing targets across all experiments, and compared to neutral distractors, appealing distractors slowed search RT down. These findings are the first to show that an object's aesthetic appeal influences visual search performance.

https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/37704/

Source: Europe PubMed Central

Aesthetic appeal influences visual search performance.

Authors: Reppa, I. and McDougall, S.

Journal: Attention, Perception & Psychophysics

Volume: 84

Pages: 2483-2506

ISSN: 1943-3921

Abstract:

Aesthetic appeal of a visual image can influence performance in time-critical tasks, even if it is irrelevant to the task. This series of experiments examined whether aesthetic appeal can act as an object attribute that guides visual search. If appeal enhances the salience of the targets pre-attentively, then appealing icons would lead to more efficient searches than unappealing targets and, conversely, appeal of distractors would reduce search efficiency. Three experiments (N = 112) examined how aesthetic appeal influences performance in a classic visual search task. In each experiment, participants completed 320 visual search trials, with icons varying in rated aesthetic appeal and either visual complexity (Experiments 1 and 2) of concreteness (Experiment 3) among two, four, eight, or 11 distractor icons. While target appeal did not influence search efficiency it sped up search times in all three experiments: appealing targets led to faster response time (RT) than unappealing targets across all experiments, and compared to neutral distractors, appealing distractors slowed search RT down. These findings are the first to show that an object's aesthetic appeal influences visual search performance.

https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/37704/

Source: BURO EPrints