The small step toward asymmetry: Aesthetic judgment of broken symmetries

Author(s)
Andreas Gartus, Helmut Leder
Abstract

Symmetry and complexity both affect the aesthetic judgment of abstract patterns. However, although beauty tends to be associated with symmetry, there are indications that small asymmetries can also be beautiful. We investigated the influence of small deviations from symmetry on people’s aesthetic liking for abstract patterns. Breaking symmetry not only decreased patterns’ symmetry but also increased their complexity. While an increase of complexity normally results in a higher liking, we found that even a small decrease of symmetry has a strong effect, such that patterns with slightly broken symmetries were significantly less liked than fully symmetric ones.

Organisation(s)
Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology
Journal
i-Perception
Volume
4
Pages
361-364
No. of pages
4
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1068/i0588sas
Publication date
2013
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
501006 Experimental psychology, 501026 Psychology of perception, 501011 Cognitive psychology, 501001 General psychology
Portal url
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/the-small-step-toward-asymmetry-aesthetic-judgment-of-broken-symmetries(a6641f2a-b3dd-464c-8d54-e88e3d34a64d).html