Towards a psychology of photography:: Dimensions underlying aesthetic appeal of photographs

With the aim to contribute to the development of a psychology of photography, this study examined what attributes are the major determinants of aesthetic appeal of photographs. Two interlinked experiments were conducted with 564 photographs having a wide range of motifs. Exp. 1 consisted of sorting by aesthetic appeal and adjective generation. In Exp. 2, attribute scaling was collected. Multidimensional scaling analysis of the photographs yielded three dimensions identified with the aid of attribute scales combined with measures of the manifest content of the photographs. The three dimensions were Hedonic Tone-Familiarity, Absence of color, and Expressiveness-Dynamics. The present results suggested that participants' familiarity with the photographs, the types of photographs (Color or Black & White), and the photographs' dynamics all affected participants' judgments of aesthetic appeal. Hedonic Tone and Expressiveness apparently mediated the participants' judgments.