PSYB10H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Parental Investment, Egalitarianism, Naturalistic Fallacy
Document Summary
The new view in psychology is aesthetic pleasure can be attributed to perceptual and cognitive fluency. Fluency refers ease that information can be processed: perceptual fluency refers to some objects being more easily identified than others, cognitive fluency refers to some objects being more easily interpreted, defined, and related to one"s existing semantic knowledge. Semantic knowledge refers to common knowledge that is based in semantic memory, which is the portion of long-term memory that processes ideas and concepts that are not drawn from personal experience. People are stimulated more by fluent stimuli. Inherently pleasing characteristics such as symmetry and contrast tend to increase perceptual fluency. Simplicity in complexity refers to the high level of beauty found in objects such as beethoven"s 9th symphony, when a complex object is processed fluently pleasure increases. Cognitive psychology: the study of how people perceive, think about, and remember aspects of the world.
