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Although computational linguistic methods have been applied to spoken and written text, they have only recently been used to study poetry. Here, we examine the linguistic components of contest-winning haiku and compare them to a control sample of poems published in an industry-standard journal. We look also at differences between haiku and senryu and what stylistic trends may have affected these poems over time. The results show that winning haiku are shorter than those in a representative journal. Journal poems also have fewer pronouns and more adjectives and nouns. All of the poems show a decrease in words over a decade-long time span. This trend may reflect changes in stylistic writing conventions. The length of such poems probably also relates to innate working memory span limitations. Haiku that limit the number of images and ideas within this limit likely facilitate cognitive processing and increase aesthetic appeal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an assessment of how students perceive a typical classroom representation of center-of-mass. Participants were shown figures consisting of two filled black circles; they were told that these figures represented spheres or balls. They were then asked to indicate with a mark the point where the spheres would balance, i. e., they were asked to find the center-of-mass. There were two participant groups. The first group (labeled "Control") received only brief, written instructions on the exercise. The second group (labeled "COM") was shown a 15-minute video which discussed, qualitatively, the topic of center of mass and the same written instructions. They also received the same written instructions as the Control group. The results indicate how students perceive the problem. In all groups students do not estimate the center-of-mass as if they were considering spheres. We find that while the performance for both groups was poor, there is a difference between the two. This suggests some insight on teaching the topic. (Contains 3 figures.)

Center-of-mass perception in dot patterns arranged into triangular and quadrilateral configurations was investigated. In Exp. 1, the length, orientation, and direction of dots forming right triangles were varied. Errors in center-of-mass perception by 19 participants increased with the length of the triangles. In Exp. 2, 27 participants estimated the centers of squares and rectangles made up of four dots. Accuracy was best for squares that contained greater reflective and rotational symmetry. The orientation of responses was generally downward in both experiments, indicating a gravitational influence. The results are consistent with a process model by which observers use internal pattern structure like medians and axes when estimating the center of an object. DOI 10.2466/PMS.110.1.195-212

Texture patterns are widely used in the decorative and fine arts but their formal aesthetic properties have not been studied. In 2 experiments participants were asked to rate the perceived beauty of square texture arrays made up of oriented line segments. In Experiment 1 these patterns consisted of vertical, horizontal (cardinal), and diagonally (-45°) oriented line segments. There were 4 conditions with only 1 of these orientations, with all possible pairs and triplets, and with all 4 together. Patterns with greater collinearity and fewer orientations were preferred. Oblique orientations were generally liked more than cardinal orientations with the exception of vertical and horizontal in combination. In Experiment 2 we used less common orientations located at the midpoints between those used in the first study, preserving their relative orientations while changing their description relative to the upright. Observers again preferred arrays with fewer orientations. Our viewers seem to like patterns through which the eye can travel unimpeded, what we dub as "flow-through." Several features including collinearity, symmetry, and simplicity help to explain the data and are associated with the processing fluency model. Although there is an advantage to evaluating cardinal orientations in wide variety of perceptual tasks, this result does not seem to apply to aesthetic judgments in textures where more emergent phenomena are at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

17 college students discriminated between vertical and horizontal target lines flanked by vertical and horizontal distractors. Large displays with 3.0-cm lines and small displays half this size were used. The distractors were positioned above and below the target or to the left and right of it, forming vertical and horizontal global orientations. The number of flankers sharing the target's orientation was varied. Vertical targets and small display sizes were processed more quickly. Speed of responding did not differ for the two global orientations. There was no advantage for target lines consistent with global orientation. The results were replicated in Exp. 2 with diagonal flankers. This supports an explanation using stimulus compatibility, since diagonal lines do not correspond to either of the response options and cannot induce a tendency to respond more to one target than another. Displays with multiple symmetry were responded to faster than those with a single symmetry which were faster than asymmetrical displays, supporting the idea that symmetrical axes parallel and perpendicular to the target orientation provide a facilitative frame of reference. Coactivation from same-oriented flankers, pop-out from differences in orientation, and symmetry all influenced responding in these patterns.

Fractals are patterns that show self-similarity at different levels of scale. Typically they appear in nature and this degree of similarity is approximate or statistical. However, artificial or exact fractals have also been studied and the advantage of these stimuli is the ability to more carefully control the relationships that occur across various hierarchies. In two experiments we studied the perceived beauty of a novel class of exact visual fractal in which we introduced reflection, rotation, translation, and random symmetries that repeated at a local and global levels. Rotation and reflection were consistently preferred to translation and randomness. Only reflected patterns were preferred at a vertical orientation. For all other symmetries there was no difference in preference between vertical and horizontal. In a second experiment we progressively eliminated the salience of local symmetry through opaque shading. Perceived beauty decreased with an increase in shading. For these patterns greater discriminability of their fractal quality makes them more aesthetically appealing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hypotheses that close physical proximity to sucrose, without its ingestion, affects skeletal muscle strength and time between meals influences the direction of this effect, were tested. 28 college students performed 10 one-arm curls using the dominant arm, while either holding a bottle containing sucrose or sand in the free hand, without knowledge of which bottle was held. Data were first collected following an overnight fast. A week later, data were collected 1 hr. after these students had each consumed a bagel. During the fasting state, the mean maximal isometric strength while holding the bottle of sucrose was significantly greater than when holding a bottle of sand; however, no significant difference was found for the group tested after having consumed a bagel. Some possible explanations for these results are discussed, recognizing limitations imposed by lack of control for order of conditions and amount of experience.

Pairs of vertically adjacent facial features were laterally displaced in the same or opposite direction. Undergraduates rated the resulting images on attractiveness. Displacements were first made on normal faces. Symmetric faces were not rated more attractive than normal controls. Faces with two alternating adjacent pairs were rated lower than faces with one or no alternating pairs. In Exp. 2, the same displacements were made from symmetrical faces to control for distance. Symmetric faces again were not rated higher than normal ones, and both conditions were considered more attractive than faces with any type of displacement. This latter result suggests a greater sensitivity to feature displacement when performed from symmetry.

Geometric regularity is introduced as a simplicity metric for understanding the esthetics of basic polygons. In Experiment 1, undergraduates rated the perceived beauty of triangles varying in geometric regularity defined by their side-length standard deviation. Each type of triangle was used: equilateral, isosceles, right, and scalene. Ratings increased with an increase in regularity and were highest for symmetric shapes. The results were replicated in a second experiment using each type of quadrilateral: square, rectangle, parallelogram, rhombus, kite, isosceles, and trapezoid. Although ratings in Experiment 2 also increased with regularity, symmetry did not perfectly predict ranked order of preference. Symmetry, partial symmetry, and familiarity are discussed as factors that can account for the results. On the basis of the shapes used in this study, we conclude that simplicity in the form of geometric regularity is usually but not always preferred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]