Relationship of Preference Judgments to Typicality, Novelty, and Mere Exposure

Two theories of aesthetic preference are reviewed. According to Berlyne's psychobiological theory, the main determinants of aesthetic preference are collative variables such as complexity and novelty, and preference is generally related to its determinants in an inverted-U manner. Recent findings contrary to these predictions are briefly reviewed. According to Martindale's cognitive theory, the main determinant of aesthetic preference is prototypicality or meaningfulness, and preference is usually related to its determinants in a monotonic or U-shaped fashion. Three experiments concerning preference for semantic category exemplars are reported. Typicality accounted for eight or nine times more of explained variance in preference than did long-term novelty, short-term novelty, or mere exposure. Preference was related to both typicality and collative variables by monotonic or U-shaped functions.

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