Description
The development of aesthetic visual preferences, particularly infants’ early sensory biases, remains underexplored. Recent research suggests that low-level chromatic and spatial image statistics can partly predict infant gaze duration and adult aesthetic preferences, as demonstrated using Van Gogh’s landscape paintings (McAdams et al., 2023). Nature varies in image statistics, particularly edge information (fewer straight and more disorganised edges), which has been shown to drive adults’ preferences for natural scenes over human-made ones through bottom-up processing of low-level features (Kardan et al., 2015). This study investigates the Biophilia Hypothesis, which posits that humans are innately attracted to nature. We explored the relationship between infant looking biases and adult aesthetic preferences for natural versus human-made stimuli. While much focus has been on low-level image properties, mid-level (Gestalt) properties like parallelism remain understudied. In our experiment, 29 infants (4-8 months) and 23 adults viewed 75 images of natural (branches, plant patterns, clouds) and human-made (building facades, objects) scenes on a colour-calibrated monitor while their eye movements were tracked. A further sample of 20 adults rated the stimuli on beauty using an antonymous adjective bipolar scale. The images were analysed for low- and mid-level chromatic and spatial image statistics (19 in total). Statistical analysis revealed that infants looked longest at human-made objects and least at clouds, overall showing a visual preference for human-made stimuli over natural scenes. However, adult looking times did not vary by image category. The results suggest that infants do not exhibit an early visual bias toward natural stimuli, challenging aspects of the Biophilia Hypothesis, which is increasingly influential in fields like design, architecture, and environmental psychology. We will further explore these findings using a partial least square regression model to identify which image statistics best predict infant gaze duration, adult looking times, and aesthetic preferences.
| Names, affilations and contact information | Katherine Alexandra Symons, The Sussex Baby Lab and Nature and Development Lab, School of Psychology, University of Sussex, ks779@sussex.ac.uk; Anna Franklin, The Sussex Baby lab, School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Anna.Franklin@sussex.ac.uk; Alice Skelton, The Sussex Baby Lab and Nature and Development Lab, School of Psychology, University of Sussex, A.E.Skelton@sussex.ac.uk. |
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| Bio | Kath is a doctoral researcher and artist at the University of Sussex. Her PhD explores developmental aesthetics and visual perception by studying infants’ eye movements in response to aesthetic stimuli. Professor Anna Franklin is a developmental and visual psychologist and leads the Sussex Colour Group and the Sussex Baby Lab. Her research on perceptual development and colour perception has been funded by grants from Research Councils UK and the European Research Council. Dr Alice Skelton co-leads the Sussex Baby Lab and investigates visual and perceptual development, and how visual experience can shape the development of perception and cognition. The Sussex Baby Lab has worked with companies that produce drama, TV, educational materials, and commercial products for babies and children. |