Examining complexity across domains: relating subjective and objective measures of affective environmental scenes, paintings and music.

ABSTRACT: Subjective complexity has been found to be related to hedonic measures of preference, pleasantness and beauty, but there is no consensus about the nature of this relationship in the visual and musical domains. Moreover, the affective content of stimuli has been largely neglected so far in the study of complexity but is crucial in many everyday contexts and in aesthetic experiences. We thus propose a cross-domain approach that acknowledges the multidimensional nature of complexity and that uses a wide range of objective complexity measures combined with subjective ratings. In four experiments, we employed pictures of affective environmental scenes, representational paintings, and Romantic solo and chamber music excerpts. Stimuli were pre-selected to vary in emotional content (pleasantness a

SUBMITTER: Marin MM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3745471 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature