Mondrians, Aesthetics, and the Horizontal Effect1Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Louisville

2Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, University of Louisville3McGill Vision Research Unit, Department of Ophthalmology, McGill University

Mondrian Paintings

Comparison of H/V Content Biases

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Phase-Scrambled Mondrians

Andrew M. Haun1, Bruce C. Hansen3, Edward A. Essock1,2

Shown above (left) are average ranks given for presentations where the content was at cardinal (i.e. horizontal/vertical) or oblique orientations. As found by Latto et al. (2000), subjects preferred rotations producing cardinal content (p=.001). Shown above at right are average ranks given for each of the eight rotations. Aesthetic rank is quite consistent within the cardinal- and oblique-content rotations.

Cardinal orientations of content were preferred for both the windowed Mondrians and the scrambled Mondrians (F=22.9,p<.001) as shown above left. Above right: The pattern across rotation angle was also similar with these stimuli.

Here we examined additional random-phase patterns and assessed which ratios of H and V content are more preferred, including the H:V ratio typical of natural scenes. Two functions (rightmost column) were fit to the H-V bias observed across a set of 600 natural scenes (Hansen and Essock Vis. Cog. 12(6),1199). This orientation bias (in a 1/f amplitude spectrum) was manipulated to produce stimuli for the following three experiments. Subjects were presented pairs of stimuli and chose the more visually pleasing of two images (with identical random phase spectra).

Next, we addressed whether the preference for paintings with content at cardinal orientations was maintained when the placement of that content was altered. Here we altered the structure by randomizing the phase of the Fourier spectrum. Grayscale circularly-windowed versions were used (top row) as well as phase-scrambled versions (bottom row). Again, subjects were presented eight rotations of an image simultaneously and they ranked the eight rotations in terms of aesthetic pleasantness. This was done for each of the eight images shown below.

Right: The structure of subjects’ judgments shows that the ranks indicating the ‘more pleasing’ judgments (ranks of 1-4) were given to rotations creating cardinal content far more often than the ranks for the ‘less pleasing’ judgments (ranks of 5-8).

Above: Three orientation amplitude biases were used (making for three basic comparisons [color coded]): H equal to V; H greater than V; and H much greater than V. Subjects reliably selected the image which was most biased.

Above: Next, we assessed whether the specific orientation (H or V) was important, or whether subjects simply preferred more-biased imagery. Three orientation biases were applied: H only, V only, and H equal to V. Results show that for this type of image content, the specific cardinal orientation is unimportant in aesthetic judgments, and that the singularly biased image is overwhelmingly preferred to images with two orientation bands of content.

Above: Here, a less-extreme form of the previous stimuli were used; comparisons were between H greater than V; V greater than H; and H equal to V orientation biases. With these more naturalistically biased images the results no longer show the large orientation bias preference seen in the previous condition, but the general preference for the more biased image was retained.

In the experiments with manipulated-bias noise images (this column), individuals tend to prefer imagery with a single dominant orientation bias. However, these images look very different from real paintings or scenes. Experiments using stimuli with intact phase spectra are underway, and the patterns of orientation preferences are different for images with more “realistic” structure.

It has been suggested previously that people find the scene content that creates the most neural activity to be the most aesthetically pleasing. Since human V1 appears to contain somewhat more neurons tuned to horizontal or vertical orientations, it has been proposed that people would thus find art dominated by horizontal and vertical contours most pleasing. For example, Latto, Brain and Kelly (Perception, 2000) have shown this for classic paintings of Piet Mondrian (paintings consisting of only horizontal and vertical edges and primary colors).

In the present study we sought to replicate the findings of Latto et al. for Mondrian stimuli, both with and without the rectilinear frame present. We also examined whether it was simply the amplitude bias, and not the specific structure, which drove subjects’ aesthetic preferences.

Secondly, since in typical natural scenes horizontal and vertical content predominates, but with more horizontal than vertical content on average (Hansen & Essock, JOV 2004), we also considered the orientation bias in aesthetic preference with respect to the typical horizontal/vertical content bias of natural scenes.

The first experiment assessed whether aesthetic preference for paintings with content at horizontal or vertical (‘cardinal’) orientations were more aesthetically pleasing than those with content at oblique orientations (regardless of frame type).

Subjects viewed simultaneously eight rotations (45o steps) of one of eight Mondrian paintings embedded in a 8.5o gray circle (below). The eight rotations of a given stimulus were arranged at random locations on a gray background on a black wall. Subjects ranked the eight rotations in terms of aesthetic quality, with ‘1’ indicating the best of the images, ‘8’ indicating the worst.

This research was supported by grants from the Office of Naval Research and the Kentucky Space Grant Consortium.

These results show that the aesthetic bias that favors H and V is fairly general, extending to globally-scrambled content and is not restricted to clearly organized (space-domain) content or to content constructed by an artist.

“Trees! How ghastly!” -- Piet Mondrian