Ruta and colleagues probe humans’ positive feelings toward curved things. They report that “Preference for curvature has been demonstrated using many types of stimuli, but it remains an open question whether curvature plays a relevant role in responses to original artworks. To investigate this, a novel set of paintings was created, consisting of 3 variations—curved, sharp-angled, and mixed—of the same 16 indeterminate subjects. . . . participants assigned higher ratings to the curved compared to the sharp-angled version of the paintings. Similarly, when participants were explicitly asked if they wanted to take the paintings home, they assigned higher wanting ratings to the curved version. . . . However, when they were asked to act as a curator and select works they wanted for their gallery . . . no significant difference was found between the 3 sets of paintings.”
Nicole Ruta, Javier Vano, Robert Pepperell, Guido Corradi, Erick Chuquichambi, Carlos Rey, and Enric Munar. “Preference for Paintings Is Also Affected by Curvature.” Psychology of Aesthetics Creativity and the Arts, in press, https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000395
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.