Preferences for Complexity in Non-Objective Art: A Cross-Cultural Study

121 p.Thesis (Educat.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1982.A cross-cultural experiment was conducted using 40 American college students (20 trained and 20 untrained in art) and 40 Malaysian college students (20 trained and 20 untrained in art). Subjects viewed 20 slides of non-objective art (divided into two categories of simple and complex) and recorded their preferences using seven step bi-polar scales between statements of LIKE and DISLIKE. Each stimulus was shown for 35 seconds. In the first part of the experiment conducted at the MARA Institute of Technology, Malaysia, language used was Malay with all instructions, directions and debriefing statements translated from original English versions. The Malay versions were then back-translated into English and used in the second part of the experiment conducted at the University of Illinois. Design employed was a 2('3) factorial. Analyses of variance and Scheffe post hoc test were performed using SOUPAC BALANOVA and POST HOC packages.The results supported the hypothesis that art training affected the responses most. The second hypothesis that all artistically trained subjects should have greater preference for both the visually complex and visually simple (conceptually complex) stimuli than the untrained subjects, was only partially supported. The Scheffe test indicated no significant differences of means for the artistically trained subjects while the untrained subjects differed significantly on one pertinent contrast. This supported the third hypothesis that there would be transcultural agreement of preference responses by all the artistically trained subjects.Overall, the results supported Child's (1965) and Iwao and Child's (1966) view that there could be transcultural agreement of taste among modality-specific trained artists. The results also supported Berlyne's notion that there could be transcultural similarities of responses toward complexity. However, while Child attributed his finding to personality underpinnings, this study indicated that such agreement could also be due to artistic training.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD