Active Projects

Aesthetic Matters: The influence of aesthetic appeal in time-critical performance

Project Context

Can visual aesthetic appeal influence task performance? This is an intriguing question with potentially far-reaching practical and theoretical implications. In our first set of papers on this topic we showed that the aesthetic appeal of a visual stimulus can influence timed performance, especially when the task was difficult, and even when stimulus appeal was a task irrelevant characteristic.

Read the article published in The Conversation here: "The science of beauty: how aesthetics can boost your mood and cognition"

Read the blog of some of this work here: https://featuredcontent.psychonomic.org/when-the-going-gets-tough-the-beautiful-get-going/

Relevant Papers{{markdown.cl|paragraph}}

• Aesthetic appeal influences visual search performance. PDF
• Mood moderates the effect of aesthetic appeal on performance. PDF

• When the going gets tough the beautiful get going: aesthetic appeal facilitates task performance. PDF

The Development of an Accessible, Diverse and Inclusive Digital Visual Language

Project Context

Icons, symbols, and signs represent a visual language that facilitates communication because it conveys large amounts of information in single units intended to be understood by everyone irrespective of culture or language (e.g., Fig.1). The development of a visual language of icons and symbols that is accessible and inclusive is of paramount importance now that the number of digital interfaces that use such language keep expanding at a global level.

Project Aims

With colleagues across Europe in linguistics, psychology, design, and computer science, our project is an exciting venture to:

• Gather evidence from a diverse population that will be, by default inclusive.
• Update the international standards for digital icons.

• Make icon standard easily and instantly accessible to developers and designers allowing them to choose and create icons for maximum accessibility to end users – via an icon accessibility tool developed with the help of machine learning experts.
  Relevant Papers

• McDougall, Siné and Reppa, Irene and Taylor, Jacqui 2023. Nudge and bias in subjective ratings? The role of icon sets in determining ratings of icon characteristics. Behavior Research Methods, 55(7), 3513-3530 BIB PDF
• Collaud, R., Reppa, I., Défayes, L., McDougall, S., Henchoz, N., &Sonderegger, A. (2022). Design standards for icons: The independent role of aesthetics, visual complexity and concreteness in icon design and icon understanding. Displays.

• McDougall, S., Reppa, I., & Taylor, J. (2022). Nudge and bias in subjective ratings? The role of icon sets in determining ratings of icon characteristics. Behavior Research Methods. PDF
  Team members/collaborators

• Dr. Cris Izura
• Dr. Deborah Morgan
• Dr. Jay Morgan

• Prof. Andreas Sonderegger

Individual differences in time perception

Project Context

Time perception is essential to everyday functioning. Disparate information obtained across many fields has illuminated environmental, personality, and neurological factors controlling timing accuracy. The project aims to discover how environmental influences on time perception interact with individual differences in personality, focusing on the underlying role of dopamine. Over-activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine can influence timing ability (Body et al, 2009; Cheung et al., 2007). Dopamine is associated with schizotypal personality problems, a personality factor also suggested to impact timing. However, interactions between environmental and intra-personal factors on timing are not well understood, and their relationships to genes controlling dopamine is unknown. Establishing these relationships will have major implications for typical and atypical functioning.

Team members/collaborators{{markdown.cl|paragraph}}

• Prof. Phil Reed
• Dr. Matthew Hopkins

• Dr. Jennifer Coull