PSYC412: What Is Beauty?

Question 1

What is human perception?

Answer 1

The reality that is created through our own cognitive interpreters of the world.

Question 2

What is James-Lange theory

Answer 2

Emotional state is inferred from psychological cues.

Question 3

What was Dutton and Aaron (1974) study?

Answer 3

Wobbly bridge v calm bridge and her physiological cues lead to emotional arousal.

Question 4

What is the golden ratio?

Answer 4

Pleasing harmonious proportions linked to beauty.

Question 5

What was Rhodes, sumich, Byatt (1999) study and how does it link to beauty?

Answer 5

Created 24 average face composites from same sex face. The composites closely linked to the overall average were seen as more attractive. (Could be replicated in animals, objects & music)

Question 6

Why is symmetry important In beauty?

Answer 6

From the composites faces, the ones with symmetrical features was chosen and deemed more attractive.

Question 7

How is ambiguity linked to beauty?

Answer 7

Less abstract/ambiguous painting seen as more beautiful.

Question 8

What is the evolutionary explanation for what we deem as beauty?

Answer 8

We select against extremes as facial symmetry is seen as a sign for good health.

Question 9

What is the Cognitive explanation for beauty?

Answer 9

Ease of processing fluency of perceptual features or conceptual meaning of a stimulus.

Question 10

What are the 2 forms of fluency?

Answer 10

Perceptual:physical stimulus features
Conceptual: the meaning

Question 11

What are the intrinsic properties of stimulus

Answer 11

Easy of processing due to simplicity of activation of pre existing knowledge.

Question 12

What was Rever, Winkielman, Schwarz (1998) study?

Answer 12

Studied a line drawing then given test on recognition and perception test. One group given a prime similar to the test prime of the bird the other group given prime not similar. Group with similar test prime had better recognition and higher liking rating of the bird, as prime aided recognition and cognitive fluency lead to a higher liking rating.

Question 13

What is the link between fluency and symmetry?

Answer 13

Symmetrical features are easily processed over irregular features (human v chimpanzee study).

Question 14

How is ambiguity linked to fluency?

Answer 14

Painting shown with a related title rather than an unrelated title were liked more due to easier conceptual fluency.

Question 15

Why might some people prefer ambiguous painting?

Answer 15

Brain wires to figure out ambiguous stimulus. Strange feeling linked to ambiguity misinterpreted as appraisal.

Question 16

What is the mere exposure effect?

Answer 16

Repetition and familiarity leads to attraction.

Question 17

How might emotional primes linked to liking?

Answer 17

Facial expressions produces physiological markers associated with emotional state (happy prime lead to more cognitive desire through physical action)

Question 18

What was Monin (2003) ?

Answer 18

Subjects studied faces and were told some were fellow students.they remembered the familiar faces more and rated them higher on attraction. This showed cognitive misinterpretation of familiarity as attraction.

Question 19

How might memory be misinterpreted?

Answer 19

Our cognitive processes can be Misinterpreted as feeling of familiarity/memory are interpreted as attraction.

Question 20

What was perceptual priming study?

Answer 20

Group shown a prime that matched the test word for 50ms. The group shown the matching prime had better recognition of the test word, Given them a cognitive head start even without them knowing giving them fluency.

Question 21

What was the Conceptual priming study?

Answer 21

Sentence surrounding the test word had meaning relating to the word. E.g “stormy sea tossed the ___ boat” the familiar connotations surrounding the sentence and the test word allows for cognitive fluency.

Question 22

What is the External sensation study?

Answer 22

Tone played under a chair when studying words unaware to the participant. I’m the test phase when the tone was repeated they recalled the words better. The unaware external sensation is a misinterpreted cue without cognitive recognition which is then misinterpreted as familiarity due to processing fluency.

Question 23

What is meta cognition?

Answer 23

Metacognition is critical awareness of one’s thinking (be aware of your cognitive processes).

Question 24

How is meta cognition linked to perceptual priming?

Answer 24

When the presents of the match prime is made apparent (not so quick) the recognition of the test word dropped due to the perceptual cognition fluency being altered making the misinterpretation of fluency for familiarly obsolete.

Question 25

How is metacognition linked to conceptual priming?

Answer 25

No time duration between contextual sentence and test word lead to a drop in recognition, as the removal of a pause before showing the word meant the time for processing fluency was removed.

Question 26

How is metacognition linked to external sensations?

Answer 26

When the tone played under the chair was made more prevalent the ambiguity is removed and tone isn’t misinterpreted as a cue for recognition as the cognitive process is removed, as the tone is interpreted as just being a tone.