# The Aesthetic Appreciation of Multi-Stable Images

## TL;DR

The study explores whether the ability of multi-stable images to switch interpretations affects their perceived beauty, finding that higher stability, not switching, increases aesthetic appreciation.

## Contribution

The paper introduces a novel experimental approach to link perceptual stability and aesthetic liking in multi-stable images.

## Key findings

- Higher perceptual stability of images correlates with increased liking and positive valence.
- Inherent image properties, not viewer instructions, mainly influence aesthetic appreciation.
- Perceptual switching reduces aesthetic liking, explained by processing fluency theory.

## Abstract

Does the quality that renders multi-stable images fascinating, the sudden perceptual reorganization, the switching from one interpretation into another, also make these images appear beautiful? Or is the aesthetic quality of multi-stable figures unrelated to the ease with which they switch? Across two experiments, we presented multi-stable images and manipulated their perceptual stability. We also presented their unambiguous components in isolation. In the first experiment, this manipulation targeted the inherent stimulus stability through properties like figural size and composition. The second experiment added an instruction for observers to actively control the stability, by attempting to either enhance or prevent perceptual switches as best they could. We found that higher stability was associated with higher liking, positive valence, and lower arousal. This increase in appreciation was mainly driven by inherent stimulus properties. The stability instruction only increased the liking of figures that had been comparatively stable to begin with. We conclude that the fascinating feature of multi-stable images does not contribute to their aesthetic liking. In fact, perceptual switching is detrimental to it. Processing fluency can explain this counterintuitive finding. We also discuss the role of ambiguity in the aesthetic quality of multi-stable images.