title: Descriptive and evaluative judgment processes: behavioral and electrophysiological indices of processing symmetry and aesthetics.
abstract: Descriptive symmetry and evaluative aesthetic judgment processes were compared using identical stimuli in both judgment tasks. Electrophysiological activity was recorded while participants judged novel formal graphic patterns in a trial-by-trial cuing setting using binary responses (symmetric, not symmetric; beautiful, not beautiful). Judgment analyses of a Phase 1 test and main experiment performance resulted in individual models, as well as group models, of the participants' judgment systems. Symmetry showed a strong positive correlation with beautiful judgments and was the most important cue. Descriptive judgments were performed faster than evaluative judgments. The ERPs revealed a phasic, early frontal negativity for the not-beautiful judgments. A sustained posterior negativity was observed in the symmetric condition. All conditions showed late positive potentials (LPPs). Evaluative judgment LPPs revealed a more pronounced right lateralization. It is argued that the present aesthetic judgments engage a two-stage process consisting of early, anterior frontomedian impression formation after 300 msec and right-hemisphere evaluative categorization around 600 msec after onset of the graphic patterns.
authors.affiliation: BioCog-Kognitive & Biologische Psychologie, Institut für Allgemeine Psychologie,Universität Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany. jacobsen@uni-leipzig.de
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Jacobsen
authors.forename: Lea
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Höfel
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003196:Computer Graphics; D003210:Concept Formation / Q000502:physiology*; D003626:Data Display; D004954:Esthetics / Q000523:psychology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008606:Mental Processes / Q000502:physiology; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*