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4.3 Further Individual Differences

The following section explores the current literature into Cross and Sub-Cultural factors that influence aesthetic response to a variety of stimulus. It will explore cultural and sub-cultural factors using a range of literature from different disciplines. This chapter examines responses from Empirical Aesthetics, Art and Nature because each of these areas (particularly nature) has been found to contain fractal patterns. The majority of findings suggest that there does appear to be consistencies in visual preference across cultures, particularly when looking at aesthetic responses to landscape. This offers support for existing theories in Empirical Aesthetics towards universal patterns of preference. Further to this however, is the evidence suggesting that sub-cultural factors and most powerfully, experience, play a role in some cases, towards shaping our preferences. These findings raise questions about the ‘universality’ of mid-range preference (Spehar et al., 2003) conclusions raised in fractal aesthetics research, considering the evidence is limited and still relatively unexplored. Most of the literature reviewed within this section is dated, and inferences can only be made to fractal patterns cautiously. However on the whole, the current literature demonstrates the requirement for further evidence exploring how cultural and cross-cultural factors can influence preference for fractal patterns.

Much of the historical research in empirical aesthetics aimed to find universals in judgments and preferences. Some researchers however explored the differences across cultures and countries, the impact of sub-cultural divide and visual environmental differences, including rural and urban populations. The following section looks at a variety of studies from different disciplines including empirical aesthetics, art studies and landscape design exploring general opinion as to whether preferences are shaped by our cultural background or are founded in universals based on innate biological drives. The stimulus explored includes art, abstract geometric shapes and nature. Limited research has been carried on cross- cultural differences in preference for fractal patterns and this section uses a variety of sources from which understanding of our responses to complex, aesthetic and natural images (all with fractal foundations) are shaped by our cultural experiences.

4.1 Cross-cultural Difference in Aesthetic Preference Literature:

The anthropologist Robert Lowie (1921) laid the groundwork for exploration of aesthetic responses across cultures to explore if universals or individual differences underlie our influence aesthetic preferences. He hoped that his brief inquiry would stimulate and inspire further and more thorough investigations. His study explored the decorative artistic and abstract style of Crow parfleches and compared these to the perfleches of the Shoshoni tribe. A Parfleche is a ‘folded rawhide carryings bag made by the plains Indians of North America’, which is decorated with colour, basic geometric abstract design (Britannica encyclopaedia, 2014). His results found that there were observable and measurable differences between the abstract patterns of each group’s parfleches design. Interestingly, in comparing the proportions of the geometric shapes, to that of the ‘golden section’ proportion (Fechner, 1860), Lowie found neither group demonstrated the measurement as a the universally preferred proportion, rather the Shoshoni norm fell above Fechner’s proposals, and Crow ratios fell below.

As Lowie (1921) had hoped, the exploration of cross-cultural differences in preferences continued to grow into the 1950’s with findings demonstrating high

correlations in aesthetic responses between Australian Aboriginals and Caucasian participants (McElroy, 1952). However, authors began to raise concerns over the existence of universal aesthetic principles arguing that beauty could more reasonability be determined by culture. Researchers, including Lawlor (1955), began to credit cultural experience as an overpowering component in understanding aesthetic universals that may exist when looking between two or more very different cultural heritages.

Larger scale cross-cultural differences in visual perceptions were explored using geometric illusions. Some included samples from up to 15 societies over a period of 6 years (Segall et al., 1966). It was hypothesised ahead of Seagall et al’s study that people from different cultures would be differentially susceptible to geometric illusions because they have discovered different visual habits that may produce/inhibit particular illusionary responses. The result confirmed this hypothesis; generally western samples were more susceptible to the Muller-Lyer and Sander parallelogram illusions, than non-western counterparts. These and other differences found in susceptibility to illusions were believed to be a response to cultural and ecological factors in the visual environments from which the different participants were sourced. This again raised the question regarding the strength that macro-cultural factors (country) have, against the strength of micro- cultural factors (participants immediate visual environment).

Such differences between visual illusion susceptibility are not grounded in biological racial difference; rather they appeared to be a result of differences in experience and susceptibility to visual illusions (Segall et al., 1966). These findings support the theory that our perceptions are acquired through experience. This understanding is important to the current thesis as we attempt to explore how visual experiences across culture, countries and sub-groups may influence our perception and in turn preference of fractal patterns.

Research continued looking at cultural differences in landscape preference, in one study a comparison between native Arctic and non-native Arctic workers, and those with no Artic experience as participants (Sonnenfeld, 1967) suggested that

Artic residents), and within these cultures, preference was influenced by factors such as meaningfulness and similarities to native landscape. These results lend support to arguments that experience increased preference such as the role that mere exposure (Zajonc, 1968) or meaningfulness (Martindale et al, 1988) play in shaping visual preferences.

The power of cultural ties in aesthetic values was further researched by Iwao & Child (1966), an as they examined evidence to support the notion that universal truths of aesthetic evaluation in art exist across cultures. Art experts (potters) were recruited from Japan and findings were to be compared to previously collected rating data for equivalent participants from the United States. Participants were recruited from a number of villages and from a number of different pottery families. A two alternate forced choice design was used with colour and black and white art images and participants were asked which, in their opinion, was the better piece of art, translated into Japanese. Iwao & Child (1966) report consistency in aesthetic judgments between both cultures, suggesting that those with an interest in art demonstrate agreement in aesthetic evaluation despite their own cultural heritage, however on closer interpretation individual differences are evident in the sample. The authors suggest scenarios including the possibility that Japanese participants may have been exposed to western art or may have influence their results to match the US counterparts. However further analysis of students within the local area reveal lower similarity scores than those seen between the 2 groups suggesting some universality between art interested individuals exists regardless of tradition or experience within culture. Child and colleagues went on to run supplementary studies looking at cross-cultural differences in aesthetic response and found, as a whole, evidence that points towards universal aesthetic exceeding the bounds of ‘culture’ as we classify it (Child & Siroto, 1965; Ford, Prothro & Child, 1966; Child & Iwao, 1968; Iwao, Child & Garcia, 1969).

Similarity Soueif and Eysenck (1971) and Eysenck & Soueif (1972) recruited British and Egyptian art students and lay people (non-art trained participants) to explore aesthetic responses. Participants were asked to rate Birkhoff’s (1933) polygons for pleasantness. Results showed interesting differences between cultural

figures, and British lay people preferred complex figures. This trend is reversed within the Egyptian sample with art-educated participants preferring the complex figures and the lay participants demonstrated preference towards the simple images. Despite this curious directional result, no significant differences where found between the British and Egyptian groups as a whole. There were also no significant differences in preference between both art and non-art trained participants, although the trend seemed to suggest reversed trends for complexity preference, but these differences were not significant. Eysenck and Soueif (1971) did not believe that their data support considerably large differences in aesthetic preference between both cultures but instead hint towards more universal preferences over cultural issues.

In a further experiment, Soueif and Eysenck (1972) studied if the factorial structure of the scores awarded by Egyptian participants to Birkhoff’s (1933) polygons was comparable to the one revealed by a previous study involving only British participants (Eysenck & Castle, 1970). Results unpicked further the factors underlying the aesthetic preference of British participants and how these differed to their Egyptian counterparts. The authors concluded that, whilst there was a predisposition between cultures to prefer certain polygonal figures, such as heightened preference in the UK sample for the cross because of the semantic associated which may be strong to the UK a more proportionally Christian society than the Egyptian sample. These findings, the author believes, proposes the possibility of a more deeply based, biologically determined cause for aesthetic judgments, rather than preferences being a function of cultural or environmental experiences (Soueif & Eysenck, 1972.)

Eysenck & Iwawaki (1971) used a similar design to explore aesthetic responses of Japanese and British Participants. The results again demonstrated no significant differences between the cultures sampled. There were high correlations between the two groups, however analysis revealed that British participants generally rated pictures more highly than their Japanese counterparts. The findings suggest similar trends as seen in previous studies that there may be underlying universal preferences for geometric shapes. Despite the results between cultures

participants were reported. These findings suggest that perhaps other factors (stronger than cultural bounds) can influence visual preferences for abstract or geometric shapes.

Researchers within the field of empirical aesthetics continued to investigate cross- cultural differences in polygon complexity. In one such study, aesthetics judgments for polygon shapes (varying in complexity) were collected from 5 different cultures including the United States, Korea, China, India and Turkey (Farley & Ahn, 1973). Results were in an agreement with the existence of an aesthetic universal for complexity, which appears to have a similar influence across the different cultures adding credence to the previous results emerging from other academics working in the same field. The finding of this study however should be noted with caution as although the cultural-origin of participants was across the 5 different cultures outlined, all participants were recruited while studying in the United States. This factor means that the visual experiences of participants would have been similar at the time of testing, meaning that the potential influence of learned preferences for (micro) environmental features should be considered during interpretation the results.

The role of sub-cultural or micro rather than macro cross-cultural environmental impact of preference is a further factor to considered when exploring the impact of culture in aesthetic responses. Studies have found great variability within sub- cultures in societies compared to relatively smaller variables across-cultures and society when looking at participants from Australia, Pakistan and Thailand (Anderson, 1976). The results show general consistency between preferences, but marked significant differences based on sub-cultural groups such as demographic details and background. For example within the Australian sample, preferences of participants from a suburban environment and school differed significantly from participants from an urban and industrialised environment and school. In additional to contributing to the knowledge of cross-cultural aesthetics Anderson (1976) highlighted the experimental/methodological issued faced by researchers at the time, which cause difficulties when collecting cross-cultural data. The author discusses the differing methods in obtaining aesthetic judgments. This

acknowledgement sheds light on the previous challenges faced, and highlight the necessity to take conclusions of these and related findings cautiously.

Previous findings emphasise strong agreement for landscape preference from participants from generally similar cultural background. These studies focused mainly on scenic qualities of landscape rather than consideration of heritage qualities (and sense of connection) with landscape. Zube & Pitt (1981) wanted to explore the gaps in literature. Their study considered Yugoslavian, West Indian and American participants response to different landscapes, both scenic and of cultural heritage to each group. Results stress the importance of individual differences as a contributor in preference formation. Significant differences between cultures were reported, however there are equal if not greater individual differences within cultural groups that influence our landscape preferences and scenic judgments. One such difference involves the presence of only nature or man-made structures in the scenes. Previous findings show general consensus that natural scenes are preferred other those displaying man-made structure (Fines, 1968; Kaplan et al., 1972) however Zube & Pitt’s (1981) findings show that not all cultures share this perception that scenes and landscapes including man-made structures are necessarily less appealing or scenic than those of only nature. These findings were supported in later exploration demonstrating high agreement for scenic preference and judgment when cultures are relatively similar (Zube, 1984). While large breaks in research into cross-cultural difference exist, McManus & Wu (2013) demonstrate the continued presence of cultural considerations in modern empirical aesthetics. McManus and colleagues (2010, 2013) found support for universals in rectangle preference across cultures but noted the smaller scale individual differences between preferences.

Summarising the literature above, results appear to show mixed findings. While there is evidence to suggest that universal and perhaps biological basis for preferences for landscape, art and patterns can be seen across a wide variety of cultures, and in relation to the current thesis, these findings would support the current theories of universal fractal preference being based in evolutionary and biological foundations. Despite these conclusions, many studies above comment

argued that the environments in which people spend time can vary vastly across culture/countries. The results above suggest that it may be a fruitful area of investigation to examine the sub-cultural and individual differences between aesthetic judgments.