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

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Abstract

The current studies examined the effect of aesthetic appeal on performance. According to one hypothesis, appeal would lead to overall decrements or enhancements in performance [e.g. Sonderegger & Sauer, ( Applied Ergonomics, 41, 403–410, 2010)]. Alternatively, appeal might influence performance only in problem situations, such as when the task is difficult [e.g. Norman, ( 2004)]. The predictions of these hypotheses were examined in the context of an icon search-and-localisation task. Icons were used because they are well-defined stimuli and pervasive to modern everyday life. When search was made difficult using visually complex stimuli (Experiment 1), or abstract and unfamiliar stimuli (Experiment 2), icons that were appealing were found more quickly than their unappealing counterparts. These findings show that in a low-level visual processing task, with demand characteristics related to appeal eliminated, appeal can influence performance, especially under duress.

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The online version of this article (doi:10.3758/s13423-014-0794-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Irene Reppa: i.reppa@swansea.ac.uk

Siné McDougall: +44-1202-961722 , smcdougall@bournemouth.ac.uk

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Psychon Bull Rev

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Psychon Bull Rev

Title: Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

Publisher: Springer US (New York )

ISSN (Print): 1069-9384

ISSN (Electronic): 1531-5320

Publication date (Electronic): 17 January 2015

Publication date PMC-release: 17 January 2015

Publication date (Print): 2015

Volume: 22

Issue: 5

Pages: 1243-1254

Affiliations

[ ]Department of Psychology, Swansea University, Wales, SA2 8PP UK

[ ]School of Design, Engineering and Computing, Bournemouth University, Fern Barrow, Poole, BH12 5BB UK

Article

Publisher ID: 794

DOI: 10.3758/s13423-014-0794-z

PMC ID: 4577531

PubMed ID: 25595208

SO-VID: 78a0e62a-3b23-4108-9389-aadf8ab790c9

License:

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.