Patterns

Friedenberg and colleagues thoroughly investigated how humans respond to different frieze patterns (border patterns with repeated design elements).  They found via a study of the seven basic frieze types found worldwide and throughout history (presented horizontally) that “consisted of individual curved and linear motifs as well as random textures [that] Friezes that filled the entire pattern region and which contained emergent global features were preferred the most.

Krpan and van Tilburg add to our knowledge of what is perceived to be beautiful.  They share that they “developed and empirically evaluated the Aesthetic Quality Model, which proposes that the link between [visual] complexity and beauty depends on another key visual property—randomness. According to the model, beauty judgements are determined by an interaction between these two properties, with more beautiful patterns featuring comparatively high complexity and low randomness.