What flowers do we like? The influence of shape and color on the rating of flower beauty

PeerJ

article

Martin Hůla¹  Jaroslav Flegr¹ 

[1] Department of Philosophy and History of Science, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague

关键词: People-plant interactions;    Beauty;    Aesthetic preference;    Floral morphology;    Evolutionary aesthetics;    Phytophilia;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.2106

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

There is no doubt that people find flowers beautiful. Surprisingly, we know very little about the actual properties which make flowers so appealing to humans. Although the evolutionary aesthetics provides some theories concerning generally preferred flower traits, empirical evidence is largely missing. In this study, we used an online survey in which residents of the Czech Republic (n = 2006) rated the perceived beauty of 52 flower stimuli of diverse shapes and colors. Colored flowers were preferred over their uncolored versions. When controlling for flower shape, we found an unequal preference for different flower colors, blue being the most and yellow the least preferred. In the overall assessment of beauty, shape was more important than color. Prototypical flowers, i.e., radially symmetrical flowers with low complexity, were rated as the most beautiful. We also found a positive effect of sharp flower contours and blue color on the overall rating of flower beauty. The results may serve as a basis for further studies in some areas of the people-plant interaction research.

【 授权许可】

CC BY