reber perceptual fluency

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Personality and Social Psychology Review2004, Vol. 8, No. 4, 364 -382

Copyright 2004 byLawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Processing Fluency a nd A esthetic P leasure :Is Beauty in the P erceiver's Processing Experience?RolfReber

Department of Psychosocial ScienceUniversity of Bergen, NorwayNorbert Schwarz

Departm ent of Psychology and Institute for Social ResearchUniversity of MichiganPiotr W inkielman

Department of PsychologyUniversity of California, San Diego

We propose that aesthetic pleasure is a function of the perceiver's processing dynam-ics: The more fluently perceivers can process an object, the mo re positive their aes-thetic response. We review variables known to influence aesthetic judgments, such asfigural goodness, figure-ground contrast, stimulus repetition, symmetry, and pro-totypicality, and trace their effects to changes in processing fluency. Other variablesthat influence processing fluency, like visual or semantic priming, sim ilarly increasejudgments of aesthetic pleasure. Our proposal provides an integrative framewo rk forthe study of aesthetic pleasure and sheds light on the interplay betwee n early prefer-ences versus cultural infiuences on taste, preferences for both prototypical and ab -stracted forms, and the relation between beauty and truth. In contrast to theories thattrace aesthetic pleasure to objective stimulus features per se , we propose that beautyis grounded in the processing experiences of the perceiver,which are in part a func-tion of stimulus properties.

What is beauty? What makes for a beautiful face,appealing painting, pleasing design, or charming scen-ery? This question has been debated for at least 2,500years and has been given a wide variety of answers(Feagin, 1995; Tatarkiewicz, 1970). However, one canbroadly distinguish three main positions.

Many theorists, dating back at least to Plato, sawbeauty as a property of an object that produces a plea-surable experience in any suitable perceiver (Tatar-

The reported research was supported by the Swiss National Sci-ence Foundation (Grant 61-57881.99 to Rolf Reber) and the Na-tional Science Foundation (Grant BCS-0217294 to Piotr Winkiel-man). Preparation of this article was suppo rted through a fellowshipfrom the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences toNorbert Schwarz. We thank Marilyn Brewer, Tedra Fazendeiro,Greg Feist, Jamin Halberstadt, Kent Harber. Christian Jakob, JackKatz, Bruce Morton, John Skowronski, Bruce Whittlesea, BerndWittenbrink, and an anonymous reviewer for comments on the arti-cle and helpful discussions.

Requests for reprint.s should be sent to Rolf Reber, Universityof Bergen, Department of Psychosocial Science, Christiesgate 12,N-5015 Bergen, Norway. E-mail; [email protected]; NorbertSchwarz, Institute for Social Reseach, 426 Thompson Street, AnnArbor, MI 48106-1248. E-mail: [email protected]; Piotr Win-kielman, D epartment of Psychology, University of California at SanDiego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0109. E-mail:[email protected]

kiewicz, 1970). This objectivist view inspired manypsychological attempts to identify the critical contrib-utors to beauty. Amo ng the identified features were bal-ance and proportion (Arnheim, 1974; Birkhoff, 1933;Fechner, 1876; Gombrich, 1995), symmetry (Arnheim,1974; Birkhoff, 1933; Gombrich, 1984; Humphrey,1997), informational content and complexity (Berlyne,1971, 1974; Eysenck, 1941; Gamer, 1974), as well ascontrast and clarity (Gombrich, 1984 ,1995 ; St. Thom-as of Aquinas, see Maritain, 1966; Solso, 1997). Theobjectivist view of beauty was so dominant in the16th century that artists introduced pattern boo ks, of-fering pictorial elements that artists could copy andcombine with each other to create beauty (see Gom-brich, 1995).

Other theorists, dating back at least to the Sophists,proposed that anything could be beautiful if it pleasesthe senses (Tatarkiewicz, 1970). From this perspective,beauty is a function of idiosyncratic qualities of theperceiver and all efforts to identify the laws of beautyare futile. This subjectivist view, reflected in expres-sions like "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" or "degustibus non est disputandum" (taste cannot be de-bated), underlies the social constructivist empha sis onthe historically changing and culturally relative natureof beauty (see Kubovy, 2000).


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FLUENCY AND AESTHETIC PLEASUREMost modern philosophical analyses, however, re-

ject the objective versus subjective distinction. Instead,they suggest that a sense of beauty emerges from pat-terns in the way people and objects relate (e.g.. In-garden, 1985; M erleau-Ponty, 1964). In this article, weadopt this interactionist perspective and seek to iden-tify those patterns. As detailed later, we propose thatbeauty is grounded in the processing experiences ofthe perceiver that emerge from the interaction of stimu-lus properties and perceivers' cognitive and affectiveprocesses.

Beauty, Experience, and JudgmentBefore we present our proposal, a few clarifications

are in order. We first introduce our use of the concept ofbeauty and relate it to the concept of aesthetic pleasure.Subsequently, we discuss the relation between beautyand various aesthetic judgments, such as judgments ofpreference and judgmen ts of aesthetic value.

Beauty and Aesthetic PleasureThe philosopher George Santayana described three

defining features of beauty: "beauty ... is value posi-tive, intrinsic, and objectified" (Santayana, 1896/1955,p. 31). By value positive and intrinsic, Santayanameant that beauty provides pleasure without any rea-soning about expected utility. This is similar to Thom -as of Aquina s' definition of beauty as what gives plea-sure at sight ("id quod visum placet"), suggestingimmediate joy without intermediate reasoning (seeMaritain, 1966). Similarly, the art historian Read(1972) did "not believe that a person with real sensibil-ity ever stands before a picture and, after a long proce ssof analysis, pronounces himself pleased. We either likeat first sight, or not at all" (p. 38). Finally, beauty isobjectified. For example, the experience of having acold drink on a hot day is both value positive and intrin-sic, but this immediate pleasure lies exclusively in apositive sensation of the body and has little to do withaesthetic appreciation of the object. In contrast, per-ceivers look at a painting not to please their body, but toenjoy the painting's beauty. Hence, people experiencebeauty as something that lies in the object. Therefore,beauty is not an "objective," but an "objectified" prop-erty (see also Feagin, 1995).

In our analyses we follow this philosophical tradi-tion and define beauty as a pleasurable subjective expe-rience that is directed toward an object and not medi-ated by intervening reasoning. This definition closelyresembles the definition of aesthetic experience usedin empirical aesthetics (e.g., Kubovy, 2000 ; Martindale& Moore, 1988). Accordingly, we use the words"beauty" and "aesthetic pleasure" interchangeably.

Beauty and JudgmentResearch participants in experimental aestheticsand psychology studies are rarely asked to judge

"beauty" per se. Instead, most studies have focused onjudgments like figural goodness, pleasantness, liking,and preference. One may wonder whether these moremodest judgments capture the grand realm of beauty.Most researchers, including us, believe that by study-ing such simple judgm ents, one can identify basic pro-cesses underlying the aesthetic experience. Further,several lines of research, for example on the mere ex-posure effect (addressed later in this article), demon-strate that different kinds of evaluative judgments op-erate via similar processes (see Bom stein, 1989). Thus,there are reasons to believe that judgments of prefer-ence, liking, and beauty are closely related.

Another issue raised by the focus on basic processesand the requirements of experimental control is thatmost psychological studies explore fairly mild aes-thetic experiences, such as those likely to accompanythe perception of a vase, a simple melody, an abstractshape, or a human face. Clearly, much of what m ost hu-mans call "beautiful" on a daily basis falls into the cat-egory of such mild experiences. However, we hope thatfuture research will also explore stronger subjectiveexperiences and examine to what extent our analysiscan inform such research.

Finally, we note that beauty as explored in this arti-cle is unrelated to aesthetic value (see, e.g., Beardsley,1981). Since the emergence of modern art, a piece ofart can have aesthetic value without being beautiful(i.e., without producing an experience of aestheticpleasure). Conversely, a painting that "pleases theeyes" may be without any artistic merit. The judgmentof aesthetic value, in contrast to beauty or aestheticpleasure as defined here, often involves substantial rea-soning about the piece of art under consideration. Wereturn to these issues in the discussion.

Overview

Our core proposal is straightforward. We suggestthat aesthetic experience is a function of the perceiver'sprocessing dynamics: The more fiuently the perceivercan process an object, the more positive is his or heraesthetic response. This proposal entails four specificassumptions. First, objects differ in the fiuency withwhich they can be processed. Features that facilitatefluent processing include all the core features identi-fied in the objectivist tradition, like goodness of form,symmetry, figure-ground contrast, as well as variablesthat have not received attention in traditional theoriesof aesthetic pleasure, like perceptual and conceptualpriming procedures. Second, processing fluency is it-self hedonically marked and high fluency is subjec-


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tively experienced as positive, as indicated by psy-chophysiological findings. Third, processing fluencyfeeds into judgm ents of aesthetic appreciation becausepeople draw on their subjective experience in makingevaluative judgments, unless the informational valueof the experience is called into question. Finally, theimpact of fluency is moderated hy expectations andattribution. On one hand, fluency has a particularlystrong impact on affective experience if its source isunknown and fluent processing comes as a surprise.On the other hand, the fluency-based affective experi-ence is discounted as a source of relevant informationwhen the perceiver attributes the experience to an irrel-evant source.In the remainder of this article, we elaborate on thisproposal and discuss supporting evidence from re-search in social and cognitive psychology as well asempirical aesthetics. We first introduce the concept ofprocessing fluency, discuss its relation to evaluative

processes, and review relevant experimental findings.Next, we provide a selective review of research that at-tempted to identify key contributors to heauty, drawnfrom different research traditions. We propose that allof the previously identified variables share a commonunderlying characteristic, namely the ability to facili-tate stimulus processing. Following this review, wehighlight how attrihutional processes and processingexpectations moderate fluency effects on perceivedbeauty, and discuss challenges to our proposal. We fi-nally show that a perceptual fluency theory of beautycan account for pheno men a that are difficult to concep -tualize in the context of other theories. Specifically, aperceptual fluency theory helps explain the interplaybetween developmentally early preferences and social-ization, the apparent contradiction between prefer-ences for average versus exaggerated forms, and whyartists and scientists have often considered truth andbeauty as two sides of the same coin.

Processing FluencyThe Concept of Processing Fluency

The processing of any stimulus can be characterizedby a variety of parameters that are nonspecific to itscontent, such as speed and accuracy of stimulus pro-cessing (see R. Reber, Wurtz, & Zimmermann, 2004).These parameters tend to lead to a common experienceof processing ease or "fluency" (for reviews see Clore,1992; Jacoby, Kelley, & Dywan, 1989; Whittlesea,Jacoby, & Girard, 1990). A large number of studiesshow that people draw on fluency to make a variety ofnonaesthetic judgme nts, including judgm ents of loud-ness (e.g., Jacoby, Allan, Collins, & Larwill, 1988),clarity (e.g., Whittlesea et al., 1990), duration (e.g.,Witherspoon & Allen, 1985), familiarity (e.g., Whit-

tlesea, 1993), and even truth (e.g., Begg, Anas, &Farinacci, 1992; R. Reber & Schw arz, 1999).Although fiuency may characterize m ental process-es occurring at various levels, our discussion is primar-ily concerned with p erceptual fluency (i.e., the ease ofidentifying the physical identity of the stimulus). Per-ceptual fluency is influenced by variables such as per-ceptual priming, clarification, presentation duration,repetition, or figure-ground contrast, as discussedshortly. However, our arguments apply as well to con-

ceptual fluency, or the ease of mental operations con-cerned with stimulus meaning and its relation to se-mantic knowledge structures (e.g., Whittlesea, 1993;Winkielman, Schwarz, Fazendeiro, & Reber, 2003).We use the more general term processing fluency tocapture these commonalities.Hedonic Marking of Fluency

Multiple theoretical notions converge on the as-sumption that high fluency is positively marked. Thebasic idea in all these notions is that high fluency sayssomething about a positive state of affairs, eitherwithin the cognitive system or in the world (seeWinkielman et al., 2003, for a more comprehensivetreatment). Specifically, high fluency may elicit posi-tive affect becau se it is associated with progress towardsuccessful recognition of the stimulus, error-free pro-cessing, or the availability of appropriate knowledgestructures to interpret the stimulus (Carver & Scheier,1990; Derryberry & Tucker, 1994; Femandez-Duque,Baird, & Posner, 2000; Schwarz, 1990; Simon, 1967;Ramachandran & Hirstein, 1999; Vallacher & Nowak,1999). High fiuency may also feel good because it sig-nals that an external stimulus is familiar, and thus un-likely to be harmful (Zajonc, 1968, 1998).

Fluency and Evaluations:Empirical Evidence

As our review of the empirical literature will indi-cate, high fluency is reliably associated with more pos-itive evaluations. Historically, this possibility has re-ceived most attention in the context of debates on thenature of the mere-exposure effect (i.e., the observa-tion that repetition enhances liking for an initially neu-tral stimulus; for reviews, see Bomstein, 1989; Zajonc,2000). Several authors proposed that the mere-expo-sure effect might reflect increases in perceptual flu-ency (e.g., Bornstein & D'Agostino, 1994; Jacoby,Kelley, et al., 1989; Seamon, Brody, & Kauff, 1983,Whittlesea, 1993). If so, we may expect that any vari-able that facilitates fiuent processing similarly resultsin increased liking, even under conditions of a singleexposure. Studies from our lab support this possibility.Some of these studies relied on variables that have along tradition in theories of aesthetics, like figure-


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ground co ntrast, and will be reviewed in a later section.Other studies relied on m anipulations that are uniquelysuggested by a fluency account of aesthetic pleasure,namely visual and conceptual priming procedures.

Priming ProceduresR. Reber, Winkielman, and Schwarz (1998, Study1) presented participants with pictures of everyday ob-

jects, such as a desk, bird, or plane (taken from Snod-grass & Vanderwart, 1980). The quality of the p ictureswas slightly degraded and processing fluency wasmanipulated through a visual priming procedure. De-pending on co nditions, the target picture was precededby a subliminally presented, highly degraded contourof either the target picture or a different picture . We ex-pected that a matching contour would facilitate pro-cessing (high fluency), consistent with research show-ing that subliminal visual primes enh ance the accuracywith which a stimulus can be identified (Bar & Bieder-man, 1998). Some participants were asked to indicatehow much they liked the target pictures. Other partici-pants were asked to press a key as soon as they couldrecognize the object in the picture, thus providing ameasure of recognition speed, an indicator of fluency.The data were consistent with predictions: Picturesprimed by matched contours were recognized faster,indicating higher fluency, and were liked more thanpictures preceded by mismatched contours. Moreover,participants were unaware of the fluency manipulation,thus eliminating the possibility of strategic respondingto pictures preceded by various primes.Extending this work with a cross-modal primingtask, Winkielman and Fazendeiro (2003) showed par-ticipants a series of unambiguous pictures of commonobjects and animals. Each picture was preceded by aletter string consisting either of a word or a nonword.Participants first indicated, as fast as possible, if the let-ter string was an actual English word. Subsequently,they reported their liking for the picture. The letterstrings served as the fluency manipulation. Som e pic-tures were preceded by matching words (e.g., word"dog"picture of a dog), introducing the highest levelof fluency. Other pictures were preceded by associa-tively related words (e.g., word "key"picture of alock), introducing a medium level of fluency. Yet otherpictures were preceded by an unrelated word (e.g.,word "snow"picture of a desk), introducing the low-est level of fluency. The results showed a robust effectof concept priming on participants' evaluation of thetarget pictures. As expected, pictures preceded bymatching words were liked significantly more thanpictures preceded by related words, which, in turn,were liked significantly more than pictures precededby unrelated words. Follow-up studies indicated thatthese fluency effects do not require that the conceptprimes immediately precede the target pictures. In-

stead, the same pattern of effects was obtained whenparticipants studied a list of concept primes before theywere exposed to the pictures.Affective Response

Importantly, the influence of processing fluency isnot limited to explicit judgments of preference andbeauty, but can also be captured with psychophysi-ological measures. This was demonstrated by Win-kielman and Cacioppo (2001), who assessed partici-pants' affective responses to fluent stimuli with facialelectromyography (EMG ). EMG relies on the observa-tion that positive affective responses increase activityover the region of the zygomaticus major ("smilingmuscle"), whereas negative affective responses in-crease activity over the region of the corrugator su-percilli ("frowning muscle;" e.g., Cacioppo, Petty,Losch, & Kim, 1986; Lang, Greenwald, Bradley, &Hamm, 1993). As expected, high fluency was associ-ated with stronger activity over the zygomaticus region(indicative of positive affect), but was not associatedwith the activity of the corrugator region (indicative ofnegative affect). Moreover, the observed differencesoccurred in the first 3 sec after stimulus presentationand several seconds before participants made overtjudgments, indicating a spontaneous affective responseto processing fluency. A subsequent study replicatedthis effect, using presentation duration as a manipula-tion of fluency.

The Mediating R ole of AffectTheoretically, we assume that the spontaneous af-fective response observed in the Winkielman andCacioppo (2001) studies mediates the impact of flu-

ency on evaluative judgm ents. Presumably, perceiversinterpret the positive affect elicited by processing flu-ency as their response to the target, resulting in morepositive evaluations. This assumption is consistentwith the feelings-as-information model, which holdsthat feelings serve as a source of information in theirown right, unless their perceived informational valuefor the judgment at hand is undermined through(mis)attribution m anipulations (e.g., Schwarz & Clore,1983; for a review see Schwarz & Clore, 1996).

Winkielman and Fazendeiro (2003) tested this pre-diction by replicating the conceptual priming study de-scribed earlier with a misattribution manipulation.Before they made their liking judgm ents, they specifi-cally told participants that their reactions to the stimulimight be influenced by background music played tothem. The music was an ambiguous new-age piece re-corded at half-speed (see Schwarz et al., 1991, for de-tails on this manipulation). Some participants weretold that the music m ight bias how easily stimuli com eto mind (i.e., their fluency experience), whereas otherparticipants were told the music might influence how


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REBER, SCHWARZ, WINKIELMANthey feel ahout the various stimuli (i.e., their affectiveexperience). The results were highly informative. Spe-cifically, attributing subjective fiuency to mu sic did notelimina te the effect of processing facilitation on liking.That is, participants who were informed that the musicmight influence how easily things come to mind stilljudged pictures as more likeable when they were pre-ceded by related rather than unrelated words, replicat-ing the previous findings. In contrast, attributing the af-fecfive response to the m usic did eliminate the effect ofprocessing facilitation on liking. That is, participantswho were informed that the music might infiuencetheir feelings toward various stimuli no longer judgednew pictures as more likeable when they were pre-ceded hy related rather than by unrelated w ords.

This pattern of results suggests that it is the fiu-ency-based affective reaction, and not the fluency ex-perience itself, that serves as a basis of judgment,resulting in enhanced liking. This interpretation is con-sistent with research into the use of moods (e.g.,Schwarz & Clore, 1983) and other phenomenal experi-ences (e.g., ease of recall; Schwarz, 1998) as experien-tial sources of information. It suggests that the affec-tive reactions to fluency, captured in EMG studies(Harmon-Jones & Allen, 2001; Winkielman & Caciop-po , 2001) as well as self-reports of mood (Monahan,Murphy, & Zajonc, 2000), serve a crucial mediatingrole.

SummaryIn combination, the reviewed studies demonstratethat variables that facilitate the processing of a stimu-lus result in more positive affective reactions, as cap-tured by psychophysiological measures (Winkielman& Cacioppo, 2001), as well as more favorable judg-ments of preference (R. Reber etal ., 1998). The impactof fluency on evaluative judgments is apparently medi-ated by the elicited affective rea ctions and hence elim i-nated when the informational value of the affective re-action is called into question through misattributionmanipulations (Winkielman & Fazendeiro, 2003).Not surprisingly, the key variables used in these ex-perimentsvisual and conceptual priminghave not

received attention in traditional theories of aestheticjudgm ent. Yet, they share with the variables com monlyconsidered in these theorieslike goodness of form,symmetry, figure-ground contrast or prototypicalitythat they facilitate fiuent proc essing of the target stimu-lus. We propose that this shared characteristic is at theheart of aesthetic pleasure.

Determinants of Beauty: A ReviewNext, we review research from social psychology,

cognitive psychology, and experimental aesthetics bear-

ing on two classes of factors that influence perceivedbeauty. We first discuss "objective" features of stimuli,such as amount of information, symmetry, figure-ground contrast, and clarity. Subsequently, we addressthe role of perceivers' previous experience with stim-uli, such as repeated exposure to the stimulus, implicitlearning of rules that underlie stimuli, and the pro-totypicality of the stimulus. We propose that the influ-ence of all of these variables derives from their abilityto facilitate fluent stimulus processing.Objective Features of Stimuli

Amount of InformationThe idea that the amount of information is an im-portant determinant of beauty has a long history in aes-thetics (e.g., Arnheim, 1974; Gombrich, 1984). In psy-chology, relevant research has mostly been conductedin the Gestalt tradition. Early researchers focused onstimulus organization and proposed that perceived"goodness" of the stimulus depends on the relation b e-tween stimulus organization and psychological mecha-nisms (e.g ., Koffka, 1935). In their view, stimuli iso-morphic to physiological mechanisms are easy toprocess and are rated as "good figures." This work'semphasis on processing ease anticipated later interestin perceptual fluency by several deca des.'Subsequent research in the Gestalt tradition has pri-marily focused on the amount of information rep-resented in a stimulus, consistent with the traditionalassumption that beauty resides in the object (e.g., Att-neave, 1954; Hochberg & McAlister, 1953). Garner(1974) expressed the amount of information extractedfrom a stimulus in terms of inferred R x R subsets,which represent the number of different shapes afterReflecting and Rotating a shape. He found that judg-ments of figural goodness were higher the less infor-mation people had to extract from a stimulus to per-ceive it (i.e., when the stimulus had high redund ancy).This finding is consistent with people's preference forsymmetric shapes, because they contain less informa-tion than asymmetric, but otherwise identical shapes(Garner, 1974). Further research has demonstrated that

this principle extends beyond judgments of figuralgoodness to evaluative judgm ents. For example, Nick i,Lee, and Moss (1981) found that ambiguity in cubistpaintings, defined in informational terms, was nega-tively related to pleasantness judgmen ts.

Important for our proposal, stimuli with less in-formation are not only more pleasing, but also easierto process, as measured, for example, by recognition'Another historical precursor is Eysenck's observation that "the

pleasure derived from a p ercept as such is directly proportional to thedecrease of energy capable of doing work in the total nervous sys-tem, as compared with the original state of the whole system"(Eysenck, 1942, p. 358).

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speed (Checkosky & W hitlock, 1973). Hence, our pro-posal suggests that controlling for the amount of infor-mation should reveal a preference for easy-to-processstimuli. Several studies bear on this issue. Some ofthese studies explored processing ease of differentforms of symmetry, such as symmetry involving re-flection around a vertical axis (as in capital "A" or"V"), symmetry involving reflection around a horizon-tal axis (as in capital "E " or "D") , or symmetry involv-ing reflection around a diagonal axis (as in the Nordiccharacter " 0" ). Palmer and Hemenway (1978), as wellas Royer (1981), used reaction times to show that verti-cal symmetry is easier to detect than horizontal sym-metry, which in turn is easier to detect than diagonalsymmetry. Building on this work, Palmer (1991) pre-sented dot patterns in vertically, horizontally, or diag-onally symmetrical arrangements, manipulating theease of processing w hile controlling for the am ount ofinformation presented (in terms of R x R subsets, asdiscussed earlier). Consistent with our perceptual flu-ency analysis, the same stimuli received the highestratings of figural goodness when presented in a verticalarrangement and the lowest ratings when presented in adiagonal arrangement, with horizontal arrangementsfalling in between. Given that the amou nt of presentedinformation was identical in all conditions, these find-ings strongly support the hypothesis that figural good-ness is a function of perceptual fluency rather thanamount of information per se.

SymmetryThe aforementioned findings also bear on proposalsthat try to locate beauty in objective symmetry. Sym-

metry has been found to influence the perceived attrac-tiveness of human faces (Gangestad, T hornhill, & Y eo,1994; Rhodes, Proffitt, Grady, & Sumich, 1998;Rhodes, Sumich, & Byatt, 1999). Moreover, symmet-ric patterns are preferred even if they do not serve anybiologically relevant function, both in humans (e.g.,Humphrey, 1997; R. Reber & Schwarz, in press) and inanimals (Rensch, 1957, 1958). These observations areoften explained by postulating an innate preference forsymmetry (e.g., Etcoff, 1999; Pinker, 1997). Given thatsymm etry is indicative of m ate value in several species(e.g., Thornhill & Ga ngstead, 1993, 1999), this is aplausible hypothesis, although the evidence for hu-mans is mixed (see Kalick, Zebrowitz, Langlois, &Johnson, 1998, for a discussion). More important forour purposes, symmetrical patterns also have less in-formation and are hence easier to process (Gamer,1974). In addition, computer-modeling work suggeststhat a perceptual system designed to recognize objectsfrom different viewpoints will process symmetricalpatterns more efficiently than any other pattern (En-quist & Arak, 1994; Johnstone, 1994). Based on thesefindings, we propose that symm etrical patterns may be

preferred because symmetry facilitates fluent process-ing (see Reber, 2002).

Contrast and C larityTheorists of aesthetics have long considered con-trast and clarity as "objective" determinants of beauty

(Gombrich, 1984, 1995;Maritain, 1966; Solso, 1997).Again, empirical research suggests that the influenceof these features may be mediated by their effect onprocessing fluency.

Studies show that recognition speed, a standardmeasure of fluency, is faster for stimuli high in fig-ure-ground contrast (e.g., Checkosky & Whitlock,1973). Similarly, W hittlesea et al. (1990) showed that arelated variable, visual clarity, influences perceptualfluency as measured by memory misattribution. Intheir study, participants saw short and rapidly pre-sented lists of words. After each list, a target word waspresented within a visual noise mask, resulting inhigher or lower visual clarity of the target word. As ex-pected, higher clarity increased the likelihood that anitem was erroneously recognized as having been pre-sented earlier. This finding indicates a misattributionof high perceptual fluency, induced by visual clarity, toprevious exposure. Consistent with this interpretation,the effect disappeared when participants knew that vi-sual clarity was manipulated.

Building on this work, we explored the influenceof figure-ground contrast on liking (R. Reber et al.,1998). In one study we m anipulated perceptual fluencyby varying the figure-ground contrast of circles pre-sented for 1 sec. As expected, circles with high fig-ure-gro und contrast were judged as prettier (or lessugly, depending on the framing of the judgment task)than circles with low figure-ground contrast. More-over, the impact of processing fluency did not dependon the framing of the judgment task. Specifically, weasked some participants to report how "pretty" thestimuli were and others how "ugly" the stimuli were.Increased fluency resulted in judgm ents of higher"prettiness" as well as judgments of lower "ugliness,"indicating that fluency did not simply facilitate ex-treme judgme nts per se.2

Of course, one m ay argue that in the R. Reber et al.(1998) study, it is the high figure-ground contrast perse (i.e., the objective feature), not perceptual fluency,that contributes to more positive evaluations. If so,high-contrast stimuli should be judged more favorably

^This result, related findings by Seamon, McKenna, and Binder(1998), as well as studies using psychophysiological measures (Har-mon-Jones & Allen, 2001; Winkielman & Cacioppo, 2001) speakagainst the possibility that the influence of fluency on preferences isreducible to m isattribution of nonspecific activation to a salient judg -ment dimension (Mandler, Nakamura, & Van Zandt, 1987). Instead,they suggest that the affective reaction induced by fluency is hedoni-cally positive.


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than low-contrast stimuli, regardless of stimulus pre-sentation time. Conversely, if perceptual fluency is thekey to preference, figure-ground contrast should bemost influential during short presentation times, whenhigh contrast can facilitate processing, and least influ-ential during long presentation times, when stimuli canbe easily processed regardless of their contrast level.R. Reber and Schwarz (2001) tested this reasoning in astudy where figure-ground contrast was manipulatedfor circles presented for 0.3, 1, 3, and 10 sec. As pre-dicted by the fluency hypothesis, figure-ground con-trast influenced aesthetic judgm ents only at short expo-sure durations, but not at the duration of 10 sec. Notethat a theory that assumes that some objective featureof the stimulus per se, such as figure-ground contrast,determines preference cannot account for this fmding.After all, different exposure times do not change theobjective features of the stimulus. If anything, the ob-jective features of the stimulus are m ost clearly percep-tible at long exposure timesyet, they fail to influencejudgments under this condition.

SummaryIn sum, a diverse body of research shows that objec-tive features of stimulilike amount of information,

symmetry, or figure-ground contrast^influence per-ceptual fluency as well as preference judgm ents. M oreimportant, knowledge of the objective features per se isnot sufficient to predict an object's evaluation. Instead,the crucial variable appears to be processing fluency.Although fluency typically covaries with objective fea-tures, fluency is the predictive variable when both arejuxtaposed. Thus, identical patterns are rated more fa-vorably when presented with vertical rather than hori-zontal symmetry (Palmer, 1991), consistent with theobservation that vertical symmetry facilitates process-ing (e.g., Royer, 1981). Similarly, high contrast en-hances liking for patterns shown briefly, but not foridentical patterns shown longer (R. Reber & Schwarz,2001). Moreover, objectively identical stimuli are eval-uated more favorably when their processing is facili-tated through priming procedures (R. Reber et al.,1998; Winkielman & Fazendeiro, 2003). In light ofthese results, we propose that the influence of objectivefeatures is mediated by their influence on processingfluency.

'One well-known objective feature that we did not address is thegolden section. The possibility that people have a preference for thegolden section is one of the oldest and most studied phenomena inempirical aesthetics (e.g., Fechner, 1876; for a review, see Green,1995). For example, rectangles are assumed to be most pleasing ifthe ratio of the short side to the long side of the rectangle equals theratio of the long side to the sum of short and long s ide, which is about1:1.618. However, evidence for preference of the golden section ismixed (Green, 1995; Kubovy, 2000). Further, we are not aware ofany work testing how golden section influences processing fluency.Accordingly, we do not address the phenomenon.

Perceiver's History W ith the StimulusPsychological research on factors u nderlying beau-

ty has also investigated the history of a perceiver's ex-perience with the stimulus. This research points to therole of repeated exposure, implicit learning of stimulusstructure, and prototypicality. Again, the influence ofthese variables can be traced to their influence on pro-cessing fluency.

Repeated ExposureRepeated exposure to a stimulus results in morefavorable evaluations, a phenomenon known as themere exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968, 1998). Mere ex-

posure effects have been obtained with a variety ofstimuli (faces, ideographs, words, melodies) and a va-riety of me asures (judgments of preference, behavioralchoices, physiological responses), indicating the ro-bustness of the phenomenon (for a meta-analysis seeBornstein, 1989; for mere-exposure effects with worksofart, see Leder, 2001).

Previously seen stimuli differ from novel stimuliwith regard to at least three fluency-related parameters.First, familiar stimuli are processed faster than novelstimuli (e.g., Haber & Hershenson, 1965; Jacoby &Dallas, 1981). Second, familiar stimuli elicit less at-tentional orienting than novel stimuli (Desimo ne, Mil-ler, Chelazzi, & Lueschow, 1995). Third, familiar stim-uli have more organized processing dynamics thannovel stimuli (Lewenstein & Nowak, 1989; Norman &O'Reilly, 2001; E. R. Smith, 2000). Based on suchfindings, several researchers suggested that perceptualfluency is central to the mere exposure effect and pro-vided evidence consistent with this account (e.g.,Bornstein & D'Agostino, 1994; Jacoby, Kelley, &Dywan, 1989; Seamon, Brody, & Kauff, 1983;Whittlesea, 1993; Whittlesea & Price, 2001).

In our reading, a perceptual fluency account of mereexposure effects is compatible with Zajonc's (1968,1998) original account. Specifically, Zajonc proposedthat the mere exposure effect reflects a precognitivemechanism that ensures caution in encounters withnovel, and potentially harmful, stimuli and the gradualextinction of this caution over repeated encounters,consistent with the observation of a "fear of the un-known" in a variety of species (for a review see Hill,1978). Given that processing fluency can often be as-sessed before a stimulus is identified with certainty,fluency may indeed serve as a very early indicatorof stimulus novelty (see Curran, 2000, and Rugg &Yonelinas, 2003, for a discussion of specific mecha-nisms). Moreover, the spontaneous affective responsesthat accompany fluency may serve as a biologicallyfunctional signal (see Winkielman et al., 2003, for adiscussion). We therefore consider both accounts com -patible, but note that a fluency account provides a moregeneral conceptualization that can accommodate the


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FLUENCY AND AESTHETIC PLEASUREinfluence of priming procedures as well as the influ-ence of repeated exposure. In addition, a fluency ac-count predicts under which conditions mere exposureeffects should not be observed, namely when partici-pants are aware of the source of fluency (cf. B omstein,1989). We return to this issue in a later section, whenwe discuss the moderating role of attributions andexpectations.

Implicit Learningof Stimulus StructureResearch into the effects of repeated exposure is

closely related to research into the relation betweenpreferences and the im plicit learning of stimulus struc-ture. In one experiment, Gordon and Holyoak (1983)used letter strings constructed in accordance with anartificial finite state grammar (see A. S. Reber, 1967,1993). In a learning phase, participants were exposedto grammatical letter strings. In a subsequent testphase, participants received novel gramm atical and un-gramm atical strings and indicated their liking for thesestrings. As predicted, grammatical letter strings wereliked more than ungrammatical ones (see also Manza,Zizak, & Reber, 1998). In a second experiment,Gordon and Holyoak (1983) were able to show thatparticipan ts' liking of complex visual patterns was neg-atively related to pattern distortion from an acquiredstandard; the less distorted the pattern was in com pari-son to the standard, the m ore it was liked.

In a series of experiments, Newell and Bright(2001) presented grammatical letter strings in an en-coding phase and then assessed grammaticality andliking ratings for both gramma tical and ungram maticalitems at test. In all three experim ents, there was a con-sistent effect of grammaticality on liking, but only ifencoding and test conditions stayed the same, ensuringfluent processing. In contrast, grammaticality judg-ments were not influenced by inconsistencies betweenencoding and test. Newell and Bright concluded thatgramm aticality judgme nts reflected attempts to explic-itly recall information about training items, whereasthe effect on liking was based on an (mis)attribution offluency.Sollberger and Reber (2004) demonstrated effectsof implicit learning on liking in the domain of music.They constructed tonal music sequences in accordancewith a finite state grammar. During a learning phase,participants were exposed to grammatical tone se-quences. During the test phase, they were given oldgrammatical, novel grammatical, and novel ungram-matical sequences. Participants liked old and novelgrammatical sequences more than ungrammatical se-quences, supporting the notion that grammatical stim-uli are pleasant.

Importantly, research shows that grammatical stim-uli are processed with higher fluency. For example.

Buchner (1994) first exposed participants to gramm ati-cal letter strings and subsequently presented stringswith a perceptual clarification procedure, asking par-ticipants to identify the strings. Specifically, the teststrings were presented in a black mask, from whichpixels were gradually removed at random until the par-ticipant could identify the letter string. Participants re-acted faster to grammatical rather than ungramm aticalletter strings, indicating that gram matical letter stringsare easier to process.

In combination, the available findings again indi-cate that increased preference is associated with in-creased fluency: "Regular" or "grammatical" stimuliare not only preferred over "irregular" or "ung ramm at-ical" ones, but also easier to process.

PrototypicalityMartindale (1984) proposed that prototypical forms

are preferred over nonprototypical formsa proposalthat is closely related to the idea that people prefer "av-erage" stimuli (Rhodes & Tremewan, 1996).'* Numer-ous studies confirm that prototypical and "average"forms are preferred over nonprototypical ones. Forexample, several studies found a positive relationbetween prototypicality and aesthetic evaluations incolor patches (e.g., Martindale & M oore, 1988), paint-ings (e.g., Hekkert & van W ieringen, 1990), and furni-ture (e.g., Whitfield & Slatter, 1979). Preference forprototypicality has also been found in music. For ex-ample, J. D. Smith and M elara (1990) showed that pro-totypical chord progressions were preferred by novices(though not by experts, as we discuss later). Similarly,Repp (1997) mixed music performances of differentperformers into an averaged performance, and foundthat such performance was highly rated.

A number of studies show that prototypical facesare preferred over nonprototypical faces (e.g.,Langlois & Roggman, 1990; Rhodes & Tremewan,1996). Theoretical explanations for this robust effecthave typically focused on the idea that organisms arebiologically predisposed to interpret prototypicalityas a cue to mate value (Symons, 1979). For example,Thornhill and Gangestad (1993, 1999) suggested thatfacial prototypicality signals health, lending individu-als with a preference for facial prototypicality in mate

''Although the concept of "averageness" can refer to an objectivefeature (i.e., the stimulus represents the arithmetical mean of all ex-emplars in the population), in most studies averageness is closely re-lated to prototypicality (i.e., perceiver's mental representation of thebest or most typical instance of a category). That is, when partici-pants are given stimuli that are average (e.g., they were created bymorphing multiple exemplars together), usually those stimuli areprototypical (e.g., participants also see the contributing exemplarsand form a mental representation of the category). Though it is theo-retically possible to distinguish the "objective" population averagefrom a more idiosyncratic psychological prototype, few studies ex-amine distinct contributions of these two factors.


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selection a selective advantage in the evolutionarypast. However, recent research casts doubt on this as-sumption. Some studies failed to document a relationbetween facial prototypicality and health (Kalick etal., 1998). More important, innate preferences forprototypical faces should not necessarily lead to pref-erence for other prototypical objects. Yet, severalstudies using different methodologies show that peo-ple also prefer prototypical dogs, watches, and birds(Halberstadt & Rhodes, 2000, 2003). Thus, there arereasons to look for another explanation of the pro-totypicality preference. Again, perceptual fluency is apromising candidate.

A large body of literature in cognitive psychologyindicates that prototypical stimuli are processed moreeasily than nonp rototypical ones (see Posner & Keele,1968; Rumelhart, McClelland, & the PDP ResearchGroup, 1986; E. E. Smith, Shoben, & Rips, 1974). Fol-lowing up on this literature, we conducted a study inwhich participants first studied several visual dot pat-terns. The patterns were random, but were constructedto converge on a prototype. In a later test phase, partici-pants (a) preferred the prototype over other previouslyunseen patterns; (b) showed stronger EMG responsesfrom the zygomaticus region, indicating m ore positiveaffect; and (c) falsely recognized the prototype as hav-ing been shown previously, indicating high fluency(Fazendeiro & Winkielman, 2003). Moreover, P. J.Reber, Stark, and Squire (1998) showed that exposureto several exemplars of dot patterns from the same cat-egory resulted in more fluent visual processing of theprototype, as reflected in decreased activity in the pos-terior occipital cortex (see Aizenstein et al., 2000, for arelated finding).

In sum, we propose that the robust relation betweenprototypicality and attractiveness may be traced to pro-cessing fluency: Prototypical stimuli are easier to pro-cess and hence evaluated more positively, consistentwith the observation that any other variable that in-creases processing fluency also increases liking.

Moderating Variables:Expectations and Attributions

Next, we turn to variables that may moderate this re-lation and address a number of potential complica-tions. To date, moderating variables have receivedmost attention in research on the mere exposure effect(Zajonc, 1968). As reviewed earlier, this researchshowed that repetition elicits a positive mood (Mona-han et al., 2000) and increases preference for stimuli(Bornstein, 1989). However, this research has alsoidentified important qualifications. Some studiesfound that liking initially increased with the number ofpresentations, followed by a decline in liking (e.g..Kail & Freeman , 1973). For exam ple. Van den Bergh

and Vrana (1998) observed that repeated exposureincreased liking up to nine exposures. After 27 expo-sures, liking increased if the salience of the repetitionscheme was low, but decreased if repetition saliencewas high. Other studies found that mere-exposureeffects were more easily obtained for complex than forsimple visual stimuli (Bornstein, Kale, & Cornell,1990), although the latter are easier to proc ess.

To account for such findings within a perceptualfluency account, it is useful to consider factors that de-termine (a) the elicitation of fluency-related subjectiveexperiences and (b) the use of these experiences injudgment.

Processing ExpectationsAccording to the discrepancy-attribution hypothe-

sis (Whittlesea & Williams, 1998,2 000), fluency asso-ciated with processing a certain event is more likely toelicit a subjective experience (pleasure, familiarity,etc.) if the fluency is unex pected in light of the person'sprocessing expectations, which constitute a "norm " forthe event (Kahneman & Miller, 1986). For example,seeing your dentist (a fiuent stimulus) at the dental of-fice does not generate a strong feeling of familiarity,whereas unexpectedly seeing the same dentist at theairport does.^ According to the discrepancy-attribu-tion hypothesis, salient causes of fluency (e.g., an obvi-ous repetition schem e, a very simp le pattern, predictivecontext) allow participants to formulate accurate ex-pectations regarding the processing fluency of the tar-get stimuli and thus reduce the likelihood that fluencywill elicit a subjective experience (Whittlesea & Wil-liams, 2000). Nevertheless, many fluent stimuli maycontinue to elicit a pleasant experience even when flu-ency of processing is expected. For example, we sus-pect that people continue to enjoy prototypical faces,symmetrical patterns, harmonious chords, and highclarity drawings even after they formed fairly accurateprocessing expectations for these stimuli.

Schwarz (2004a, 2004b) suggested that these di-verging intuitions reflect that ex pectations have a dualinfluence: On the one hand, unexpected fluency ismore likely to capture attention, resulting in a con-scious experience as suggested by the discrepancy-at-tribution hypothesis. On the other hand, expectationsentail an attribution to the variable that gave rise to theexpectation in the first place. When this variable is ir-relevant to the evaluation of the stimulus (as is the case

^This possibility is elegantly illustrated by experiments showingthat pseudohomophones (letter strings that sound like real words,such as "phraug") and orthographically regular nonwords (e.g.,"hension") elicit illusions of familiarity and are rated as pleasant(Whittlesea & Shimizu, 2001). Presumably, these stimuli elicit cog-nitive and affective reactions because they are processed faster thanparticipants expect.


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FLUENCY AND AESTHETIC PLEASUREfor repetition schemes or predictive contexts), the ex-perience is considered uninformative and not usedinforming a judgm ent, as discussed later. When thevariable is relevant to the evaluation (as is the case forsymmetry, prototypicality, and so on, which are char-acteristics of the stimulus itself), the experience is con-sidered informative and used as a basis of judgment.This conjecture, derived from the feelings-as-informa-tion model (Schwarz & Clore, 1996), awaits empiricaltesting.

Attributional ProcessesOnce an affective experience is elicited by a fluentstimulus, its impact on preference judgm ents is moder-ated by attributional processes (e.g., Bornstein &D'Ag ostino, 1994; Van den Bergh & Vrana, 1998). In

general, individuals only rely on experiential informa-tion when it seems to bear on the target of judgment,but not when they are aware that it may reflect the in-fiuence of an unrelated variable (Schwarz & Clore,1996). Thus, people should only rely on fluency-basedexperiences when their informational value is notcalled into question. When it becomes apparent thattheir experience may merely reflect the influence ofhigh repetition or a preceding prime, the experience isdiscounted and perceivers switch to alternative inputsto form a judgm ent (e.g., Bornstein & D'Ago stino,1994; Van den Bergh & V rana, 1998). This assum ptionis consistent with (mis)attribufion effects observed inthe exploration of other sources of experiential infor-mation, like moods (e.g., Schwarz & Clore, 1983; for areview see Schwarz & Clore , 1996), ease of recall (e.g.,Schwarz et al., 1991; Winkielman, Schwarz, & Belli,1998; for a review see Schwarz, 1998), or familiarity(Fazendeiro, Winkielman, Luo, & Lorah, in press).Consistent with these earlier findings, we observedthat the impact of processing fluency on judgment iseliminated when participants attribute their affectivereactions to an irrelevant source, such as a backgroundmusic (e.g., Winkielman & Fazendeiro, 2003), as re-viewed earlier.

Challenges and ConjecturesIn this section, we address various challenges that afluency account of aesthetic pleasure needs to hand le.We first discuss why people som etimes prefer complexrather than simple stimuli, including preference forcomplex stimuli by experts. We then turn to the ques-tion of how stimulus valence may moderate fluency ef-fects on preference. The empirical ev idence bearing on

these challenges is often sparse and sometimes contra-dictory. We review what is known and offer some con-jectures and recommendations for future research.

Stimulus ComplexityAn important challenge for our fiuency account iswhy people sometimes prefer complex over simplestimuli. After all, a simple stimulus (e.g., a single line

or one musical note) should be easier to process than acomplex stimulus (e.g., a pattern of lines or a chord),but the latter are comm only preferred. We propose thatseveral processes may contribute to a relative prefer-ence for complexity.Expectations and AttributionsAs discussed in the preceding section, the ability offiuency to elicit an experience, and the perceiver's w ill-ingness to use that experience in forming a judgment,depends on expectations and attributions. Simple stim-uli allow the perceiver to form more accurate process-ing expectations, reducing the strength of the fluency-based experience. Further, simple stimuli provide the

perceiver with an obvious attribution for the experi-ence. Consistent with these ideas, a common view inaesthetics holds that highest beauty is attained by "uni-formity in variety," or "simplicity in complexity," aswhen a complex theme is presented in an accessibleway (see Dickie, 1997). This phenomenon can be un-derstood by conceptualizing uniformity or simplicityas a source of fiuency, and variety or complexity as asource of processing expectations. That is, when pro-cessing is expected to be difficult, yet turns out to beeasy, it creates a particularly strong experience of aes-thetic pleasure (see Gombrich, 1984, for a relateddiscussion).*

A similar logic may explain why stimulus com plex-ity is often related to preference by an inverted U-shaped function (e.g., Berlyne, 1971; Vitz, 1966). Withlow levels of complexity, the source of fluency is verysalient. As complexity increases, the salience of thesource of perceptual fluency decreases, enhancing themisattribution of fluency to beauty. However, furtherincreases in complexity will eventually reduce pro-cessing fluency, leading to a decrease in perceivedbeauty. These mechanisms would combine to form aU-shaped relation between complexity and beauty, aspredicted and found by Berlyne (1971).

Different Sourcesof Processing FacilitationPerceptual versus conceptual fluen cy. Complex-ity may sometimes be preferred because it facilitatesaccess to the meaning of the stimulus. That is, a de-

crease in perceptual fluency due to complexity may beoutweighed by an increase in conceptual fiuency due to

^Similar processes may underlie Eysenck's (1941, 1942) obser-vations that order (source of fluency) and com plexity (source of ex-pectations) interact in determining aesthetic pleasure.

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REBER, SCHWARZ, WINKIELMANmeaningfulness. Consistent with this idea, Martindale,Moore, and Borkum (1990) found that meaningfulnesswas a better predictor of aesthetic preference thancomplexity per se.

Future research m ay fruitfully address the relativecontribution of fluency to the subjective experienc es ofthe perceiver at various stages of processing. In a firststep toward this question, R. Reber et al. (2004) exam-ined how processing speed contributes to the subjec-tive experience of "ease" at various perceptual stages.Participants w ere presented w ith words in high and lowfigure-ground contrast, printed in more and less read-able fonts. The participants' task was to either detectthe appearance of these words, or to identify them asquickly as possible. As expected, high contrast sped upperformance on a detection task, reflecting early pro-cessing stages, but not on the identification task, re-flecting later processing stages. On the other hand,high font readability sped up performance on the iden-tification task, but not on the detection task. Interest-ingly, both high figure-ground contrast and high fontreadability enhanced judgments of the subjective easeof perception. This finding suggests that facilitation ofthe early stimulus detection stage and the later stimulusidentification stage of processing can jointly contributeto the experience of ease. Future studies should addresshow facilitation at various processing stages contrib-utes to liking.

Objective simplicity versus cognitive ease. Fi-nally, objectively simpler stimuli are not always easieron the cognitive system. In the visual domain, complexshapes often have higher redundancy and thus are rec-ognized faster than simple shapes (Biederman, Hilton,& H umm el, 1991). In the auditory dom ain, recognitionof a melody is facilitated through multiple embeddingof redundant patterns (Gentner & Hulse, 1998). Empir-ical studies and connectionist models suggest that rec-ognition is often e asier when a pattern is embedded in alarger context (e.g., the letter "r" by itself or in the con-text of a word), with different levels of analysis sim-ultaneously supporting each other (Rumelhart &McClelland, 1982). In short, simplicity per se does notnecessarily imply ease of processing. Hence, it is al-ways necessary to empirically examine the actual easeof processing for simple and complex stimuli.

Experts and NovicesNumerous studies demonstrated profound differ-ences in the aesthetic preferences of novices and ex-perts. In general, people without art training prefersimple and symmetric visual elements, whereas peoplewith art training prefer complex and asymmetric visualelements (e.g., McWhinnie, 1968). Similarly, musicnovices prefer prototypical chord progressions, where-

as experts do not show this preference (e.g.. Smith &

Melara, 1990). Do these observations imply that on-ly novices' preferences are influenced by processingfluency?In our reading, two different processes are likely tocontribute to these differential preferences. First, train-ing in the arts presumably increases the fluency withwhich complex art stimuli can be processed. Repeated

exposure to complex stimuli results in higher percep-tual fiuency, and training in arts gives meaning to com-plex structures in paintings, poems, or music, whichresults in an additional increase in processing ease. Ac-cordingly, the observation that experts have higherpreference for complex stimuli than novices may itselfreflect fiuency effects. Second, experts are more likelythan novices to consider aesthetic value, the ideas be-hind the work, and the norms of "good" and "bad" taste(Bourdieu, 1979/1987; Gombrich, 1995). As a result,they may evaluate simple stimuli more negatively thannovices, despite the pleasure they receive from easyprocessing.As W ilson et al. (1993) demonstrated, such an ana-lytic approach to aesthetic preference bears the risk ofmaking poor ch oices. In their studies, participants whohad to explain why they liked a poster subsequently se-lected posters from which they derived less pleasureonce they had it at home than participants who couldrely on their gut preference. Similarly, experts may runthe risk of acquiring art that they find less enjoyablethan expected, once they no longer interact with it inthe thoughtful manner that led to their choice. How-ever, our processing fluency account provides somehope for these experts: Extended exposure to their newtreasure may eventually result in a preference that isdriven by processing fluency instead of aesthetic value.In a similar vein, in the history of western music, morecomplex musical intervals were gradually introducedand then accepted by an initially reluctant audience,potentially refiecting increased fluency through re-peated exposure. In fact, Roederer (1973) suggestedthat more complex musical intervals require morecomplex information processing, a skill that the audi-ence acquires with increasing familiarity.

Stimnlus ValenceCentral to our proposal is that processing fluency isexperienced as positive and that this experience, inturn, results in more favorable judgments. As our re-view ind icates, this effect has been observed for stimulithat are largely content-free (abstract designs, novelmelodies, nonwords, etc.), as well as for stimuli thatare highly meaningful (everyday objects, faces, dogs,birds, watches, guns, words, sentences, etc.). This ob-servation, however, does not imply that stimulus con-tent is irrelevant, and we would certainly expect thatstimuli with positive content are evaluated more favor-

ably than stimuli with negative content. But how does374


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Stimulus content interact with fluency? Does fluencyenhance the evaluation of positive as well as negativestimuli?

To date, the role of stimulus valence has mostlyreceived attention in mere-exposure research. As re-viewed earlier, most studies indicate that repetition ofinitially neutral or positive stimuli enhances preferencefor these stimuli (see Bornstein, 1989, for a review).However, studies with initially negative stimuli pro-duced mixed findings. Some authors found that re-peated exposure enhanced preference for initiallynegative stimuli (Zajonc, Markus, & Wilson, 1974),whereas others observed that repeated exposure to ini-tially negative stimuli decreased preference for thesestimuli (Brickman, Redfield, Harrison, & Crandall,1972; Grush, 1976; Klinger & Greenwald, 1994;Swap, 1977). In our reading, m ixed findings are to beexpected for several reasons.

First, fluency manipulations like repetition or highfigure-ground contrast are likely to have multiple ef-fects. On one hand, they facilitate fluent processing,which elicits a positive affective response (Winkiel-man & Cacioppo, 2001). On the other hand, they en-hance the men tal representation of the stimulus and fa-cilitate the extraction of stimulus meaning. Suppose,for example, that you are repeatedly exposed to a nega-tive item, like a somewhat blurred picture of a rottingcarcass. With each repetition, the picture is easier toperceive, which by itself is experienced as positive.But each repetition also increases access to the item'snegativity, resembling a shift from viewing the rottencarcass through a fogged w indow to viewing it througha clear window. This increased access to the stimulus'negativity, and the resulting affective response mayeclipse any initial positive reactions due to higher flu-ency. Similarly, when a sinner views a perceptually flu-ent image of hell, the fear from the prospect of eternaldamnation may well override the pleasure from ease ofperception.

Second, fluent processing of initially negative stim-uli may also elicit negative evaluations via m eta-cogni-tive inferences (Skurnik, Schwarz, & Winkielman,2000). For examp le, multiple repetitions of the name ofa notorious murderer may increase perceivers' feelingof name familiarity, as observed in Jacoby, Kelley,Brown, and Jasechk o's (1989) "false fam e" effect. This"false fame" may then lead the participant to infer thatthe criminal must be particularly vicious, or why elsewould the name seem so familiar (Klinger & Green-wald, 1994)? Again, this inference may override anypositive reaction due to the higher fiuency of the stimu-lus. One paradoxical, and not yet tested, implication ofthis conjecture is that names and pictures of highlynegative individuals (e.g., Stalin or Hitler) mayinitially elicit brief fluency-based positive responses,which are quickly overridden by responses based onmeaning.

Finally, some studies investigated the effects of rep-etition on stimuli presented in differentially valencedcontexts. In a positive context, mere exposure gener-ally increases preference for old compared to newstimuli (Burgess & Sales, 1971; Saegert, Swap, &Zajonc, 1973). In a negative context, however, the pic-ture is mixed. Saegert et al. (1973) found that personalattraction increased, but Burgess and Sales (1971) ob-served that increased exposure to no nsense words in anegative context resulted in a decrease in preference.These findings presumably reflect that the previouspairings of the stimulus with a negative context re-sulted in more negative associations, which were suffi-cient to override the positive influence of fiuency perse . Unfortunately, the procedures used do not permitthe separation of these effects.

As the reviewed examples illustrate, it is difficult toseparate the relative contributions of fiuency-based af-fective reactions and fluency-related changes in per-ceived stimulus meaning and associations. D evelopingmethodologies that can shed some light on this issue istherefore an important next step. One prom ising strat-egy was used by Halberstadt (personal communica-tion, March 2004), based on relative attractivenessjudgments. Specifically, Halberstadt showed partici-pants a variety of negative objects and assessed judg-ments of the relative attractiveness of a given object.His results showed that highly prototypical negativeobjects, such as guns, were rated as more "attractive"than nonprototypical negative objects, paralleling theprototypicality effect observed for neutral and positiveobjects (Halberstadt & Rhode s, 2000). Thus, it appearsthat fiuency due to prototypicality increases attractive-ness irrespective of stimulus valence.

Implications of a Processing FluencyTheory of BeautyWe now turn to a discussion of the implications of

our theoretical framework and show how it can accom-modate preference phenom ena that are problematic forother theoretical approaches.

Nature Versus Nurturein Aesthetic Preferences

Our theoretical proposal allows for a conceptual in-tegration of findings bearing on the aesthetic prefer-ences of young children and the influence of socializa-tion. This issue has received some attention in thepsychology of music.Medieval music theorists described tone combina-tions with simple frequency ratios as naturally pleasingrather than displeasing (see Schellenberg & Trehub,1996). In line with this assumption, Zentner and Kagan(1996) observed that 4-month-old infants looked lon-


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REBER, SCHWARZ, WINKIELMANger at the source of music, and showed less motor ac-tivity, when the music involved consonant sounds (i.e.,those with simple numerical frequency ratios, like 1:2or 2:3) rather than dissonant sounds, presumably indi-cating an early preference (see Trainor & Heinmiller,1998, for related findings). However, the emergence ofvery different musical tastes in adults indicates a pow-erful role of socialization and experience. For example,people without musical training prefer consonant todissonant sequences, whereas people with musicaltraining, who had more exposure to dissonant se-quences, do not show this preference (Frances, 1987).

A processing fluency account can accommodateboth sets of finding s. From this perspective, one sourceof fiuency is found in biologically given perceptualmechanisms that are more attuned to certain stimulusorganizations. In a study by Schellenberg and Trehub(1996), infants showed better detection of subtlechanges to harmonic intervals if the combinations oftones were related by simple rather than complex fre-quency ratios. This finding is in line with the assump-tion that simple frequency ratios are easier to processthan complex frequency ratios (Roederer, 1973). Asecond source of fluency is stimulus repetition and theimplicit learning of stimulus regularities (e.g., Buch-ner, 1994; Haber & Hershenson, 1965; Jacoby & D al-las, 1981; A. S. Reber, 1993; Whittlesea et al., 1990).

Given these two sources of fluency, one can under-stand why there are few interindividual differences inmusic appreciation by infants (Schellenberg & T rehub,1996; Zentner & Kagan, 1996), yet quite remarkableinterindividual differences in music appreciation by adults(Frances, 1987). Specifically, infants come equippedwith similar perceptual me chanism s that result in higherprocessing fluency for specific classes of stimuli. Asthey mature, repeated exposure to various examples ofmusic of their cu lture and social class results in more flu-ent processing for familiar and regular musical ele-ments. In fact, Tillmann, Bharucha, and Bigand (2000)presented a model showing how people m ay im plicitlylearn musical structures of their ownculture, facilitatingthe perception of music that obeys the rules of harmonywithin this culture. In sum, the debate about nature ver-sus nurture in music appreciation is mistaken from theperspective of a perceptual fluency account. Instead,this account suggests that aesthetic preferences alwaysdepend onfiuency,which, in turn, is determined by bothbiological equipment and socialization.

A similar discussion emerged in research on facialpreferences in infants. It has been shown that ne wborn sprefer attractive faces (Slater et al., 1998). As discussedearlier, attractive faces are close to the mathematical av-erage of the population (Langlois & Roggman, 1990).But how can infants prefer a population average if theyhave seen only very few exem plars of the category? Thisfinding can be explained by assuming the existence ofinnate processing biases that facilitate reco gnition of ru-37 6

dimentary face-like features (Turati, 2004). Because av-erage faces best match the innate processing biases, theyare processed mo st fluently and as a result are preferredby newborns (see Bednar & M iikukulainen, 2000, for acomprehensive discussion and a computational model).However, as infants mature, they are exposed to manydifferent exemplars of a category and form new proto-types, often very quickly (Walton & Bower, 1993). Thisacquisition of new prototypes results in preferences fornew types of "average" faces (Rubenstein, Lang lois, &Kalakanis, 1999). What will eventually end up being"prototypical" for an adult will depend on the perso n'sculture and social class, resulting in individual differ-ences and beauty standards that vary somewhat acrosscultures. Hence, from the perspective of a perceptualfluency account, the nature versus nurture debate in fa-cial preferences (as in music) can be resolved by assum-ing that aesthetic preference is a function of fluency,which, in turn, is determined by both biological equip-ment and socialization.In sum, a perceptual fluency account can provide aconceptual integration of the apparent contradictionbetween early and acquired preferences by tracingboth to fluency of processing. It therefore has an ad-vantage over theories that emphasize objective featuresof beauty, which cannot account for effects of social-ization and suggest fixed preferences across the lifespan. Fluency theory also has an advantage over social-ization theories, which cannot account for the system-atic nature of early preferences.Prototypical Versus Exaggeratedand Abstracted Forms

In apparent contradiction to a common preferencefor prototypicality, two popular tech niques in art are ex-aggeration and abstraction (Ram achandran & Hirstein,1999). A perceptua l fluency theory m ay again shed lighton this paradox. On the one hand, prototypical stimuliare easier to process than nonprototypical ones, result-ing in higher preference . On the other hand, under someconditions, exaggeration and abstraction may facilitateprocessing even more by em phasizing central featuresand discarding others. This is suggested, for exam ple,by the initially paradoxical finding that caricatures offaces are sometimes better recognized than undistortedimages (e.g., Mauro & Kubovy, 1992; Rhodes, Bren-nan, & Carey, 1987). Future research m ay address thishypothe sis directly and may fruitfully relate it to the dis-cussion of preferences for prototypical versus exagger-ated facial stimuli (see Perrett, May, & Yoshikawa,1994; Rhodes & Tremewan, 1996).''

'Some effects of exaggeration on attractiveness may reflect theoperation of other processes, such as appeal of indicators of sexualdimorphism and sex-typical traits (Perrett et al., 1998). For examp le,heterosexual men tend to prefer wom en with fuller than average lips.


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Beauty and TruthFinally, our processing fluency proposal sheds newlight on why artists and scientists alike have long consid-

ered beauty and truth as two sides of the same coin. InGreek and medieval art, it was considered impossiblethat something untruthful could be beautiful (see Eco,1988;Tatarkiewicz, 1970). Even in 19th century poetry,beauty and truth were seen as two sides of the same coin,as expressed by Keats' famous assertion "beauty is truth,truth is beauty" (McGlone & Tofighbakhsh, 1999,p. 240). It was only later that beauty and truth wereviewed as separate attributes in art.

A similar identification of beauty and truth can beseen in the philosophy of science. For a long time, animportant aspect of the acceptability (i.e., truth) of ascientific hypothesis has been its simplicity (cf. Hem-pel, 1966). This view has a long tradition and some the-orists suggested that the aesthetic value of simplicitymotivated ancient cultures to begin to classify theirflora and fauna, regardless of the survival needs of thetribe (see Levi-Strauss, 1962/1966). Hence, aestheticcriteria seemingly stood at the very beginnings of sci-entific inquiry. Recently, philosophers of science, par-ticularly those concerned w ith the com plexities of evo-lutionary theory, began to cast doubt on the value ofuniversally app lying the simplicity principle because itmay preclude the acceptance of more accurate, but less"elegant" theories (Sober, 1994).

Despite these conce rns, it appears that at least somescientists use the beauty of a theory as a guide to itstruth. The Nobel price-winning physicist Chandrasek-har has exemplified this thinking by quoting the m athe-matician Weyl: "My work always tried to unite the truewith the beautiful; but when I had to choose one or theother, I usually chose the beautiful" (Chandrasekhar,1987, p. 65). Chandrasekhar continued:

"the example which Weyl gave was his gauge theoryof gravitation, which he had worked out in his Raum-Zeit-Materie. Apparently, Weyl became convincedthat this theory was not true as a theory of gravitation;but still it was so beautiful that he did not wish to aban-don it and so he kept it alive for the sake of its beauty.But much later, it did turn out that W eyl's instinct wasright after all, when the formalism of gauge invariancewas incorporated into quantum electrodynamics."(Chandrasekhar, 1987, p. 65f)

Of course, this anecdote does not imply that beautifultheories are truethere may have been as many beau-tiful theorie s that turned out to be wrong after all. Yet, itdoes illustrate that some scientists believe that when ascientific proposition cannot be decomposed analyti-cally, its truth can be revealed nonanalytically or "intu-itively," by assessing its beauty.Given this parallelism of beauty and truth in art andscience, one may ask if both judgm ents involve similar

psychological processes. In fact, there is growing em-pirical evidence that people use a common source forevaluations of both beauty and truthprocessing flu-ency. For example, stimulus repetition increases judg-ments of liking (e.g., Bornstein, 1989; Zajonc , 1968) aswell as judgments of truth (e.g., Arkes, Hackett, &Boehm, 1989; Begg et al., 1992; Brown & Nix, 1996;Hasher, Goldstein, & Toppino, 1977). Similarly, fig-ure-ground contrast increases judgments of liking(e.g., R. Reber et al., 1998) as well as judgments oftruth. For example, R. Reber and Schwarz (1999) ob-served that the same statements were m ore likely to bejudged true when presented with high rather than withlow figure-ground contrast. Similarly, McGlone andTofighbakhsh (2000) demonstrated that the same prop-ositions are more likely to be perceived as true whenpresented in a rhyming rather than a nonrhyming form.Interestingly, a rhyming form also enhances the flu-ency with which statements are understood (e.g.,Meyer, Schvaneveldt, & Ruddy, 1975, Rubin, 1995)and is used in poetry to increase the reader's pleasure(McGlone & Tofighbakhsh, 1999; Vendler, 1997). Incombination, these findings suggest that judgm ents ofbeauty and intuitive judgments of truth may share acommon underlying mechanism. Although human rea-son conceptually separates beauty and truth, the verysame experience of processing fluency may serve as anonanalytic basis for both judgments.

Summary and ConclusionsIn sum, we propose that aesthetic pleasure is a func-

tion of the perceiver's processing dynamics: The morefluently the perceiver can process an object, the morepositive is his or her aesthetic response. Th is proposalentails four specific assumptions. First, objects differin the fluency with which they can be processed. Fea-tures that facilitate fluent processing include all thecore features identified in objectivist theories ofbeauty, like goodness of form, symmetry, and fig-ure-grou nd contrast, as well as variables that have notreceived attention in traditional theories of aestheticpleasure, like perceptual and conceptual priming pro-cedures. Second, processing fluency is itself hedoni-cally marked and high fluency is subjectively experi-enced as positive, as indicated by psychophysiologicalfindings. Third, the affective response elicited by pro-cessing fluency feeds into judgm ents of aesthetic ap-preciation, unless the informational value of the expe-rience is called into question. Finally, the impact offluency is moderated by expectations and attribution.On the one hand, fluency has a particularly strong im-pact when its source is unknown and fluent processingcomes as a surprise. On the other hand, the fluency-based affective experience is discounted as a source ofrelevant information when the perceiver attributes the


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experience to an irrelevant source. One of the strengthsof our proposal is its ability to integrate distinct phe-nomena under a common theoretical framework.Whereas the basic fluency-liking relation is robustand reliably replicable, several complications mayemerge that deserve further investigation. First, vari-ables that influence fluency of processing can also in-

fluence the accessibility of the pre-existing semanticand affective content of the stimulus. This may in-crease the impact of stimulus content, potentially over-riding the influence of the fluency-based affective re-sponse. Second, we conjecture that "pure" fluencyeffects are most likely observed at an early stage ofprocessing and that stimulus content exerts a subse-quent influence. Third, the extent to which people relyon their initial fluency-based gut response or on stimu-lus content is a function of their processing motivation ,as observed with other sources of experiential informa-tion (for a review, see Schwarz & Clore, 1996). In gen-eral, experiential information is more influential underthe heuristic processing style adopted under low moti-vation conditions than under the systematic processingstyle adopted under high motivation conditions. Dif-ferences in the preferences of experts and novices maybe plausibly traced to this variable. These conjecturesawait systematic testing.

Let us turn to a final question. We have seen thatbeauty does not rest in the objective features of an ob-ject, but derives instead from the processing experi-ences of the perceiver. Is beauty therefore in the eye ofthe beholder? In a sense it is, if folk wisdom thinks ofthe eye as the perceptual processes of the beholder.However, beauty "in the eye of the beholder" has oftenbeen contrasted to "objective beauty." The fluency hy-pothesis resolves this apparent contradiction: Beauty isin the processing experiences of the beholder, but theseprocessing experiences are themselves, in part, a func-tion of objective stimulus properties and the history ofthe perceiver's encounters with the stimulus. Hence,beauty appears to be "in the interaction" between thestimulus and the beholder's cognitive and affectiveprocesses.

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