Persons like to look at photographs of pretty girls and pretty boys. Taking objectification to a higher level, rigorous experimental testing (using photographs from Hot or Not, re-rated in a controlled laboratory procedure) has established that subjects discount the value of looking across time and trade money and work for viewing opportunities. These behavioral patterns … Continue reading economics of social attention
Experimental studies indicate that persons rate images that they process more fluently as more aesthetically pleasing: We propose that aesthetic pleasure is a function of the perceiver’s processing dynamics: The more fluently perceivers can process an object, the more positive their aesthetic response. We review variables known to influence aesthetic judgments, such as figural goodness, … Continue reading sensory economics: cheaper is better
Brain effects are communicative goods. A recent study found common effects among reading and seeing actions: Participants observed actions and read phrases relating to foot, hand, or mouth actions. In the premotor cortex of the left hemisphere, a clear congruence was found between effector-specific activations of visually presented actions and of actions described by literal … Continue reading more empirical evidence on making sense
The PicturePhone was a spectacular failure in the U.S. in the early 1970s. Many factors contributed to the PicturePhone’s flop. It required significant up-front equipment expenditure coordinated across users. It was expensive to use. It was bulky. It highly constrained the bodily position of users: compared to the PicturePhone, the fixed line phone of that … Continue reading sensory ecology