A Limitation of Empirical Studies on Symmetry Preference: The Aesthetic Quality of Stimuli

Several neuroscientists and art psychologists have investigated the existence of a positive relationship between symmetry and beauty from biology to art. However, it is difficult to find studies showing the impact of stimulus specificity and aesthetic quality on aesthetic appreciation in the relationship between symmetry and non-symmetry (randomness). In our study, we created stimulus images by combining the same matrices, consisting of modular stochastic polygons, in order to obtain different symmetrical and non-symmetrical combinations. Our sample consisted of art naïve participants. We hypothesised that random images would elicit a stronger perception of movement and greater complexity. However, we also hypothesised that the specificity and aesthetic quality of our stimuli would render both symmetrical and non-symmetrical images equally aesthetically pleasing overall, without a clear aesthetic preference for symmetry, even when the types of symmetry varied. The results showed that our different stochastic, symmetrical and non-symmetrical combinations were, in general, equally aesthetically appreciated.