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Clinical Trial
. 2013 Jun 18;110 Suppl 2(Suppl 2):10446-53.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1301227110. Epub 2013 Jun 10.

Impact of contour on aesthetic judgments and approach-avoidance decisions in architecture

Oshin Vartanian  1 , Gorka Navarrete, Anjan Chatterjee, Lars Brorson Fich, Helmut Leder, Cristián Modroño, Marcos Nadal, Nicolai Rostrup, Martin Skov
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

Impact of contour on aesthetic judgments and approach-avoidance decisions in architecture

Oshin Vartanian et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

On average, we urban dwellers spend about 90% of our time indoors, and share the intuition that the physical features of the places we live and work in influence how we feel and act. However, there is surprisingly little research on how architecture impacts behavior, much less on how it influences brain function. To begin closing this gap, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study to examine how systematic variation in contour impacts aesthetic judgments and approach-avoidance decisions, outcome measures of interest to both architects and users of spaces alike. As predicted, participants were more likely to judge spaces as beautiful if they were curvilinear than rectilinear. Neuroanatomically, when contemplating beauty, curvilinear contour activated the anterior cingulate cortex exclusively, a region strongly responsive to the reward properties and emotional salience of objects. Complementing this finding, pleasantness--the valence dimension of the affect circumplex--accounted for nearly 60% of the variance in beauty ratings. Furthermore, activation in a distributed brain network known to underlie the aesthetic evaluation of different types of visual stimuli covaried with beauty ratings. In contrast, contour did not affect approach-avoidance decisions, although curvilinear spaces activated the visual cortex. The results suggest that the well-established effect of contour on aesthetic preference can be extended to architecture. Furthermore, the combination of our behavioral and neural evidence underscores the role of emotion in our preference for curvilinear objects in this domain.

Keywords: curvature; design; habitat theory; neuroaesthetics.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Examples of stimuli used in the study. The focal aim of the study involved a comparison of contour (i.e., curvilinear vs. rectilinear spaces), although we also controlled for ceiling height (high, low) and openness (open, enclosed) within our two conditions of interest (Methods).
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Effect of curvilinear and rectilinear spaces on beauty judgments and approach-avoidance decisions. The y axis represents the sum of responses.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Pleasantness ratings predict beauty ratings. The y axis represents the sum of responses.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
Effect of choice on response latency for beauty judgments and approach-avoidance decisions.
Fig. 5.
Fig. 5.
Curvilinear spaces activate the anterior cingulate cortex in beauty judgments. SPM rendered into standard stereotactic space and superimposed on to sagittal MRI in standard space. Bar represents magnitude of t-score.
Fig. 6.
Fig. 6.
Curvilinear spaces activate the lingual gyrus and calcarine in approach-avoidance decisions. SPM rendered into standard stereotactic space and superimposed on to transverse MRI in standard space. Bar represents magnitude of t-score.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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