Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Facial attractiveness is of particular relevance to evolution. Facial attractiveness can be perceived rapidly and subsequently pose large impacts on other cognitive processes. Researchers have done a lot of behavioral and neural studies on the roles of facial attractiveness from the perspectives of attention, temporal perception, learning, memory, and decision-making over recent years. The discrepancies in past research mainly focused on the different behavioral and neural responses evoked by facial attractiveness in similar experimental tasks. There are also several extensible aspects in this line of research, such as the topics, technical methods and materials. Future fMRI studies are needed to further explore the neural mechanisms of how facial attractiveness influences cognition.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Previous studies showed that the attractiveness rating of a face was influenced by context face, which may lead the evaluation to be closer to or far away from the attractiveness of the context, known as assimilation effect or contrast effect. It suggests the influence of context face on target attractiveness evaluation varies and needs to further clarify how it happens. However, there are two problems remain to be solved according to the manner on how the assimilation effect is calculated in previous studies. Firstly, the calculation method of assimilation effect is based on a relative standard by comparing attractiveness ratings of target faces between different contexts (i.e., T1 vs T2), which ignores the initial attractiveness of target face (T0) presented alone. This might lead to an illusive assimilation effect, where both T1 and T2 are far away from T0 and is actually a contrast effect. Secondly, there is a change of assimilation effect associated with the change of target-context difference if an illusive assimilation effect is true. But the change of target-context difference is ignored in previous studies, and how it impact on the attractiveness rating of target face remains unlcear. In this study, the assimilation effect was calculated based on an absolute standard by comparing attractiveness ratings of target faces with their initial attractiveness rated without context. In the experiment, the medium attractive faces was chosen as target face and high-attractive faces as context faces, and the attractiveness difference between the target and the context was changed in a consecutive way. A within-participant design was adopted with the attractiveness difference between the target and the context and exposure time as independent variables. The results found that under highly attractive context faces, individuals' attractiveness ratings of medium target were increased to be closer to the context, resulted in an assimilation effect. In particular, we found the assimilation effect was changed with the attractiveness difference between the target and the context, called the continuum effect in assimilation process. More interestingly, an illusive contrast effect would be concluded if comparing attractiveness ratings between different context without considering th initial attractiveness rating (i.e., a relative standard). That is, the assimilation effect might be mistaken as a contrast effect in previous studies. In addition, the exposure time affected the evaluation of facial attractiveness, and individuals were more inclined to overestimate facial attractiveness in short time.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： The impression of trustworthiness based on facial appearance plays an important role in interpersonal trust and cooperative behavior. Previous research results have indicated that a variety of additional information (e.g., facial features, context) could affect facial judgments by both bottom-up and top-down processes. However, the mechanism of the two adjustment factors is still unclear. Focusing on this issue, our previous research has found that the top-down process is dominant when both approaches work together. Based on previous findings, the current research proposes the “experience transfer hypothesis”, that is, whether additional information could adjust the trustworthy evaluation of the current face is depended on the evaluator’s previous experience and its generalization results. Experience generalization determines the success of experience transfer. When new cues are lack of similarity to the cues from previous experiences or when previous cues are not strongly associated with the propensity to trust, the experience of trust will not be transferred to the new condition and thus the adjustment factors will fail. When people face two conflicting adjustment cues, the cue which is more similar to the previous cues that are closely related to trust tendencies will dominate the adjustment effect. Under the experience transfer hypothesis framework, this research will design and conduct behavioral experiments to verify the critical role of previous experience in adjusting facial trustworthiness. At the same time, we will use neuroimaging techniques to explore the cognitive neural mechanism of facial trustworthiness adjustment. For this purpose, three studies have been designed in the present research. Study 1 is designed to investigate the cognitive mechanism of the bottom-up and top-down adjustment factors and verify the moderating effect of experience transfer on the evaluation of facial trustworthiness. Regarding the adjustment effect, Study 2 will explore the boundary conditions of experience transfer from three different aspects: the similarity of visual cues, the correlation between visual cues and the tendency to trust, and the contrast effect of different visual cues. Referring to the adjustment process, by using neuroimaging techniques, Study 3 will explore the influence of adjustment direction, and clarify the neural mechanism of facial trustworthiness evaluation. This project proposes the “experience transfer hypothesis” theoretically and introduces the variable “experience” into the process of facial evaluation adjustment, providing new ideas and empirical evidence to deepen our understanding of how interpersonal trust builds. Moreover, this research will systematically answer the question that how people use previous experiences to adjust the evaluation of facial trustworthiness on a given first impression. We will explore the boundary conditions of experience transfer, the influence of adjustment directions on the evaluation of facial trustworthiness, and find out the reason for the failure of facial evaluation adjustments. The solution to the above problems will help to deepen the exploration of the mechanism of trust behavior and improve the theory of facial evaluation. It has important theoretical significance for our in-depth understanding and discussion of the regulation mechanism of interpersonal trust. Meanwhile, it can help people improve interpersonal trust while maintaining their original appearance through the establishment of external experience. This research will provide the empirical basis for further prediction and adjustment of interpersonal trust behavior, offer suggestions for creating a harmonious and credible interpersonal relationship and social atmosphere, and guide people to adjust their own trust levels more effectively.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Recently, group emotional contagion has attracted much interest among the scholars of emotional contagion, focusing on the interactive process of emotional contagion among group members. It contains not only direct emotional contagion between two individual, but also the process of group identity, common behavior, collective rules. In addition to inter-individual emotional contagion, group emotional contagion involves two unique emotional outcomes—"emotion cycles" and "collective effervescence". To clarify the occurrence and enhancement process of group emotional contagion, this review associates the three elements of collective ritual (i.e., synchronized actions, shared attention, and shared meaning) and group emotional contagion. Then, the potential mechanisms of collective ritual on group emotional contagion is summarized. First, redundant, repetitive and synchronized actions, as well as shared attention and meaning in collective rituals can trigger the processes related to self-representation. On the one hand, the "self-referential effect" pushes individuals to project personal characteristics into the group, leading to "self-anchoring". On the other hand, collective rituals are characterized by ambiguous causality, but with symbolized social norms embodied. During the process of collective rituals, individuals tend to rely on symbolized social norms to represent themselves, and thus the self-stereotype occurs. As a result, the group identities based on self-anchoring and self-stereotyping is facilitated. Second, strong sense of belonging to the group promotes integrated identity, thereby blurring the boundaries between the individual self and the social self. Highly integrated individuals will experience a transformation of self-representation, from the individual self to the relational self or the collective self (emphasizing group identity), so that an individual will be more closely connected with the group. The group identity generated by collective rituals leads individuals to regard emotion senders as a part of the group and more likely to interpret emotional signals as positive, leading to a larger possibility of emotional mimicry in this context. Emotional imitation under collective ritual produces an emotional experience based on identity, which ultimately enables group emotion to spread on a larger scale. In conclusion, collective rituals enhance group identity through self-stereotyping and self-anchoring. Integrated identity basing on group identity makes individuals pay more attention to group identity, which further leads individuals to transform the individual self into social self and more prone to accepting the group's opinions and emotions. Future studies should further investigate the influencing factors of group emotional contagion and enrich its measurement methods.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Preference reversal of joint evaluation is well known in the field of decision-making. The Generalized Evaluability Theory (GET), as a theory for preference reversal with the strongest explanatory power, emphasizes the role of the mode of evaluation (i.e., the presence or absence of contextual information) in the decision-making process. The theoretical models for the contextual effect of social comparison and social evaluation, e.g., the Inclusion/Exclusion Model (IEM), also emphasizes the role of contextual information (especially the similarity between context and target) in the evaluation process. Analogous to preference reversal, the contextual effect can also be explained as a kind of "decision preference" (upward assimilation and downward contrast) and its "reversal" (upward contrast and downward assimilation). Taken as analogous concepts, preference reversal and contextual effect are first introduced and compared, and then contextual effect is explained and extended from the new perspective of joint evaluation. Future research should pay attention to the following aspects to deepen the understanding of the contextual effect and promote the theoretical integration and practical implications of these two fields.牋First, how to measure contextual effects. Previous studies usually measured the contextual effects as the relative difference of the target evaluations among different contexts, which might lead to a contrary conclusion. Similar to the fact that preference reversal is concluded from the difference between joint and separate evaluations, future research on contextual effect should also take the baseline condition (i. e., the target is evaluated separately) into account. This is to avoid the inapposite measure of contextual effects of social comparison and social evaluation. 牋Second, what factors influence contextual effects. Inspired from the contextual factors of preference reversal effects of joint evaluations, future research may pay more attention to the target-context similarity for various evaluation dimensions of social comparison and social evaluation. 牋Third, the contextual effect may be extended to cross-dimensional domains. It is common for cross-dimensional trade-offs in decision-making during joint evaluations. Thus, the cross-dimensional contextual effects should not be rare in social comparison and social evaluation. Specifically, the cross-dimensional domains may be manifested as followings: 1) context and target are cross-dimensional, 2) target evaluation on one dimension (e.g., trustworthiness) is impacted by the ingroup/outgroup relationships between the evaluator and target resulted from another feature (e.g., race), and 3) contextual effects are modulated by the relevance between the contextual dimension and the target dimension, and so on. 牋Finally, the contextual effect can be linked into practical applications. Decision-making is common in practical context, and the new perspective of joint evaluation can provide insights for the decision-making dilemma related to contextual effects, in particular when the target and the context are extremely similar leading to a hard prediction of the occurrence of the assimilation effect. Besides, based on the perspective of joint evaluation, multidimensional criteria in real situations such as interviews should be evaluated separately to minimize the adverse impact of contextual assimilation and contrast, when it is more difficult to evaluate the key criterion than the less important criterion. Therefore, the perspective of joint evaluation can inspire the application of contextual effect in a wider range of evaluation and decision-making situations in the future.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Previous research demonstrated that ensemble perception of groups can be formed rapidly by extraction of the average of high-level complex features. However, it is unclear whether the average percept is the outcome of extraction from the characteristic value of the average stimulus (for example, average face) created from group members, or from calculation of the average value of group members’ characteristic values. The above two values were confused with each other in prior research, since most average value of group members are similar as the characteristic value of the average stimulus. However, the attractiveness rating of the average face created from a group of faces is usually systematically higher than the mean value of attractiveness ratings of this group of faces. Therefore, it is easier to explore how the ensemble coding of crowd face attractiveness (i.e. group attractiveness) is formed by comparing the attractiveness of the average face with the mean value of attractiveness rating of a group of faces. This could provide a useful approach to explore how the average percept is formed. The present study used the average discrimination paradigm (Experiment 1 & 2) and the scoring paradigm (Experiment 3 & 4) to clarify the mechanism of the formation of average percept by comparing the group attractiveness with the attractiveness of average face. To tackle this issue, whether the average face was presented in the group of faces or not was manipulated (conditions: Avg vs. NoAvg). Group size were also manipulated to explore whether group size modulated the formation of average percept. In the average discrimination paradigm, a group of faces served as group stimuli to be compare with the probe face for attractiveness. Participants were asked to judge which is more attractive between the group stimuli and the probe face. In the scoring paradigm, participants were asked to rate the attractiveness of group stimuli, the average face created from the group, and each face of the group in isolated manner. Each group consisted of twelve (in Experiments 1 and 3) or four faces (in Experiments 2 and 4). There were two kinds of groups: one is that all group members are original faces, without the average face. The other is that an average face morphed from other original faces was included in the group. In Experiment 1, the proportions for judging probe average face more attractive than group attractiveness in the Avg condition was similar with the NoAvg condition. In Experiment 2, when the set size was four, the proportions for judging probe average face more attractive than group attractiveness were significantly higher in the NoAvg condition. Moreover, in Experiment 3, the ratings for group attractiveness were not significantly different between Avg and NoAvg conditions. This may indicate that the group attractiveness is based on the average face which was created from group members rather than the mean value calculated from group members’ attractiveness. In addition, the diffusion model analysis showed that the coding time was longer for NoAvg condition, which indicated that the formation of average face needed cognitive resource. In Experiment 4, when the set size was four, the attractiveness rating of the average face was significantly higher than group ratings for the two kinds of groups. The different results in different group size may be interpreted as the outcome of weakened average percept caused by the salient individual face representations in small group. This was evident from several analyses: 1) group attractiveness and the attractiveness of morphed average face decreased with smaller set size (Experiment 4); 2) When the probe face was morphed average face, the proportion for judging probe face as more attractive than group attractiveness was greater, comparing with the condition when the probe was a new face whose attractiveness was similar with the morphed average face (Experiment 2); 3) The performance for the hypothesized condition with average percept included in the set is in between the conditions with/without real average face included (Experiment 2-4). In addition, comparing with Experiment 1, the information accumulation speed in Experiment 2 is slower, the processing time of group attractiveness is longer, reflecting the disturbance of the individual face representation. In summary, the findings supported the hypothesis that group attractiveness is based on the morphed average face. Thus, the ensemble percept relies on the extraction from the average stimulus created from the group.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Malevolent creativity is distinguished from general creativity due to its “harmfulness”. It is known that negative personality traits and threatening social situations may promote malevolent creativity via strengthening malevolence. So it seems reasonable to speculate the inhibitory role of positive personality traits (e.g., resilience) on the malevolence in malevolent creativity. However, it has been also evident that resilience is positively correlated with creativity itself. Thus, the two roles of resilience seem to be contradictory when malevolence and creativity are linked together. As a result, it is unclear that what the dominant role of resilience in malevolent creativity is. To tackle this issue, two studies were conducted with the hypothesis that high resilience may predict less malevolent creativity via weakening the malevolence. A moderated mediation model was further proposed to investigate the roles of coping style and stress on the relationship of adolescents’ resilience and their malevolent creative behaviors. Study 1 aimed to explore whether resilience predicts malevolent creativity in a positive or negative direction and whether coping style mediates the influence of resilience on malevolent creativity. A sample of 370 teenagers in study 1 completed the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CDRS), Malevolent Creativity Behavior Scale (MCBS), Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire, and Runco Ideational Behavior Scale (RIBS). Study 2 aimed to investigate the moderating role of stress in the mediation process of coping style on the relationship of resilience and malevolent creativity. Another sample of 244 teenagers was recruited in study 2 to induce their acute stress using the Trier Social Stress Test before completing the above questionnaires. The results showed that: 1) the resilience scores of participants were negatively correlated with their malevolent creativity behavior scores; 2) Coping style played a complete mediating role in the relationship between resilience and malevolent creativity; 3) The mediating effect of coping style was moderated by stress where stressful situation weakened the inhibitory effect of positive coping styles on malevolent creativity. These results suggested that the positive quality of resilience can inhibit the harmfulness of malevolent creativity, but stressful situations can reduce the inhibitory effect of resilience. It shed light that cultivating the resilience of young people will resist the adverse effects of stressful situations, and it is necessary to guide the development of their creative ability.
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2022-11-24
Abstract：
[Objective] Explain and extend contextual effect from the new perspective of joint evaluation.
[Methods] Preference reversal of joint evaluation is well known in the field of decision-making. The Generalized Evaluability Theory (GET), as a theory for preference reversal with the strongest explanatory power, emphasizes the role of the mode of evaluation (i.e., the presence or absence of contextual information) in the decision-making process. The theoretical models for the contextual effect of social comparison and social evaluation, e.g., the Inclusion/Exclusion Model (IEM), also emphasizes the role of contextual information (especially the similarity between context and target) in the evaluation process. Analogous to preference reversal, the contextual effect can also be explained as a kind of "decision preference" (upward assimilation and downward contrast) and its "reversal" (upward contrast and downward assimilation). Analogous to preference reversal, the contextual effect can also be explained as a kind of "decision preference" (upward assimilation and downward contrast) and its "reversal" (upward contrast and downward assimilation).
[Results] Based on the analogy between contextual effect and preference reversal, the contextual effect was explained and extended from the new perspective of joint evaluation.
[Limitations] Based on the differences between contextual effect and preference reversal,their influencing facors may be different
[Conclusions] Future research should concern how to measure the contextual effect, and several prospective directions were proposed, e.g. interaction of contextual factors and evaluated taget, cross-dimensional contextual effects, interaction of contextual factors and evaluator, and practical applications of contextual effects. It is expected to promote a deeper understanding of the contextual effect and the theoretical integration and practical implications of these two fields.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2022-02-25
Abstract：
"
[Objective] To better understand the occurrence and enhancement mechanism of group emotional contagion, this review analyzed the relationship between the three elements of collective ritual, namely synchronous behavior, shared attention and shared meaning, and group emotional contagion.
[Conclusions] Collective ritual enhanced group identity and further lead to individual transformation of self-representation. Finally, it enhanced the group emotional contagion.
[Limitations]Future research should further investigate the influencing factors of group emotional contagion and enrich its measurement methods.
"
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2021-11-08
Abstract： The impression of trustworthiness based on facial appearance plays an important role in interpersonal trust and cooperative behavior. Previous research results have indicated that a variety of additional information (e.g., facial features, context) could affect facial judgments by both bottom-up and top-down processes. However, the mechanism of the two adjustment factors is still unclear. Focusing on this issue, the current study proposes the “experience transfer hypothesis”, and explores the cognitive mechanisms, the boundary conditions of the experience transfer effect, and the underlying process of these two adjustments. This study will provide new ideas and empirical evidence to deepen our understanding of how interpersonal trust builds.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2021-10-08
Abstract： Malevolent creativity is distinguished from general creativity due to its “harmfulness”. It is known that negative personality traits and threatening social situations may promote malevolent creativity via strengthening malevolence. So it seems reasonable to speculate the inhibitory role of positive personality traits (e.g., resilience) on the malevolence in malevolent creativity. However, it has been also evident that resilience is positively correlated with creativity itself. Thus, the two roles of resilience seem to be contradictory when malevolence and creativity are linked together. As a result, it is unclear that what the dominant role of resilience in malevolent creativity is. To tackle this issue, two studies were conducted with the hypothesis that high resilience may predict less malevolent creativity via weakening the malevolence. A moderated mediation model was further proposed to investigate the roles of coping style and stress on the relationship of adolescents’ resilience and their malevolent creative behaviors. Study 1 aimed to explore whether resilience predicts malevolent creativity in a positive or negative direction and whether coping style mediates the influence of resilience on malevolent creativity. A sample of 370 teenagers in study 1 completed the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CDRS), Malevolent Creativity Behavior Scale (MCBS), Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire, and Runco Ideational Behavior Scale (RIBS). Study 2 aimed to investigate the moderating role of stress in the mediation process of coping style on the relationship of resilience and malevolent creativity. Another sample of 244 teenagers was recruited in study 2 to induce their acute stress using the Trier Social Stress Test before completing the above questionnaires. The results showed that: 1) the resilience scores of participants were negatively correlated with their malevolent creativity behavior scores; 2) Coping style played a complete mediating role in the relationship between resilience and malevolent creativity; 3) The mediating effect of coping style was moderated by stress where stressful situation weakened the inhibitory effect of positive coping styles on malevolent creativity. These results suggested that the positive quality of resilience can inhibit the harmfulness of malevolent creativity, but stressful situations can reduce the inhibitory effect of resilience. It shed light that cultivating the resilience of young people will resist the adverse effects of stressful situations, and it is necessary to guide the development of their creative ability. " " "
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2021-02-18
Abstract： Previous research demonstrated that ensemble perception of groups can be formed rapidly by extraction of the average of high-level complex features. However, it is unclear whether the average percept is the outcome of extraction from the characteristic value of the average stimulus (for example, average face) created from group members, or from calculation of the average value of group members’ characteristic values. The above two values were confused with each other in prior research，since most average value of group members are similar as the characteristic value of the average stimulus. However, the attractiveness rating of the average face created from a group of faces is usually systematically higher than the mean value of attractiveness ratings of this group of faces. Therefore, it is easier to explore how the ensemble coding of crowd face attractiveness (i.e. group attractiveness) is formed by comparing the attractiveness of the average face with the mean value of attractiveness rating of a group of faces. This could provide a useful approach to explore how the average percept is formed. The present study used the average discrimination paradigm (Experiment 1 & 2) and the scoring paradigm (Experiment 3 & 4) to clarify the mechanism of the formation of average percept by comparing the group attractiveness with the attractiveness of average face. To tackle this issue, whether the average face was presented in the group of faces or not was manipulated (conditions: Avg vs. NoAvg). Group size were also manipulated to explore whether group size modulated the formation of average percept. In the average discrimination paradigm, a group of faces served as group stimuli to be compare with the probe face for attractiveness. Participants were asked to judge which is more attractive between the group stimuli and the probe face. In the scoring paradigm, participants were asked to rate the attractiveness of group stimuli, the average face created from the group, and each face of the group in isolated manner. Each group consisted of twelve (in Experiments 1 and 3) or four faces (in Experiments 2 and 4). There were two kinds of groups: one is that all group members are original faces, without the average face. The other is that an average face morphed from other original faces was included in the group. In Experiment 1, the proportions for judging probe average face more attractive than group attractiveness in the Avg condition was similar with the NoAvg condition. In Experiment 2, when the set size was four, the proportions for judging probe average face more attractive than group attractiveness were significantly higher in the NoAvg condition. Moreover, in Experiment 3, the ratings for group attractiveness were not significantly different between Avg and NoAvg conditions. This may indicate that the group attractiveness is based on the average face which was created from group members rather than the mean value calculated from group members’ attractiveness. In addition, the diffusion model analysis showed that the coding time was longer for NoAvg condition, which indicated that the formation of average face needed cognitive resource. In Experiment 4, when the set size was four, the attractiveness rating of the average face was significantly higher than group ratings for the two kinds of groups. The different results in different group size may be interpreted as the outcome of weakened average percept caused by the salient individual face representations in small group. This was evident from several analyses: 1) group attractiveness and the attractiveness of morphed average face decreased with smaller set size (Experiment 4); 2) When the probe face was morphed average face, the proportion for judging probe face as more attractive than group attractiveness was greater, comparing with the condition when the probe was a new face whose attractiveness was similar with the morphed average face (Experiment 2); 3) The performance for the hypothesized condition with average percept included in the set is in between the conditions with/without real average face included (Experiment 2-4). In addition, comparing with Experiment 1, the information accumulation speed in Experiment 2 is slower, the processing time of group attractiveness is longer, reflecting the disturbance of the individual face representation. In summary, the findings supported the hypothesis that group attractiveness is based on the morphed average face. Thus, the ensemble percept relies on the extraction from the average stimulus created from the group.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2021-02-18
Abstract： Previous research suggested that the attractiveness rating of a face tends to be similar to the attractiveness of its surrounding faces in the context, resulting in an assimilation effect. However, these results were usually based on the comparison among ratings of the target faces under different attractiveness contexts, without considering the attractiveness rating of the target face in isolation, and might lead to incorrect conclusion on the contextual influence on target evaluation. This study investigated the influence of duration and difference in attractiveness rating between the target and the context faces on the rating of target face. The assimilation effect was measured by taking mean rating of the same face in isolation as a reference value. The results found that attractiveness rating of the target face was similar to the attractiveness of its surrounding face in the context, and the differences between target and context faces led to a continuum effect in assimilation process, i.e., the more different in attractiveness rating between the target and the faces in the context, the smaller in the effect size of an assimilation was observed. " "
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2018-03-22 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： People prefer beautiful visual artworks. Aesthetic experiences to beautiful and ugly images are different. Studies on neuroaesthetics showed different neural responses to beautiful stimuli compared to ugly stimuli. The first stage of aesthetic experience of a visual artwork is visual perception of the stimulus. Most research about aesthetic processing focused on stimuli presented consciously. Little is known about whether aesthetic processing can occur unconsciously. Previous research suggested that both beautiful paintings and attractive faces can elicit activation of the reward circuitry in our brain. Attractive faces break through continuous flash suppression more quickly than unattractive faces. Thus, it is possible that unconscious processing of beautiful paintings is different from that of less beautiful paintings. In two experiments, the present study adopted continuous flash suppression paradigm to investigate whether aesthetic ratings of western paintings influenced the time for stimuli to break suppression. We also compared the suppression effect of achromatic (Experiment 1) and chromatic (Experiment 2) noise pictures.
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