Analysis of Digital Image Properties and Human Preference (2002)
article⁄Analysis of Digital Image Properties and Human Preference (2002)
abstract⁄The three studies summarized in this paper present evidence that aesthetic preference for visualsurface texture is closely correlated with spatial frequency and orientation. The stimuli used were digitalversions of real environments, in the sense that they originated in photographs of real surfaces.Correlations are significant, and robust, and they were not effected by identifiability of the images.Theoretically, this points to the possibility that aesthetic preferences for objects in the builtenvironment’virtual’ and ‘real’are not exclusively devoted to culture, memory and association, aspostmodern discourse would dictate. Although more work needs to be done, it nevertheless points tothe potential that preference for digitalvirtual as well as real architectural environments be consideredthe visual stimuli to which human beings are neurologically tuned. Digital technology provides themeans to implement such research, and computer simulations of ‘real’ environments will be the firstapplication. With an ability to adapt aesthetically to the changing human condition, the importantquestions are how should one adapt such surfaces and under what criteria or under what influence arethe adaptations made
