Event overview
Infants, Visual Aesthetics and Arts Engagement
Infants, Visual Aesthetics and Arts Engagement
Professor Anna Franklin
The Sussex Colour Group & Baby Lab
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/colourgroup
It is unlikely that young infants have a mature aesthetic response. However, it is of both theoretical and practical interest to identify how infants respond to stimuli judged as aesthetically appealing by adults. Here, I will present a series of studies where we have investigated the relationship between how long infants look at visual stimuli and adults’ aesthetic judgements of those stimuli. I identify stimuli, such as colour and images of building facades, where infants look longer at the stimuli that are judges as more aesthetically appealing by adults. I identify other stimuli, such as book images and natural scenes, where there are negative or no relationships between infant looking and adult aesthetic judgements. I propose an account for why infant looking and adult aesthetics relate for some stimulus types but not others. I also present analyses where we investigate the contribution of low- and mid-level chromatic and spatial image statistics to both infant looking and adult aesthetic judgements, which identify differences in the role of image statistics in infants’ and adult’s response. Finally, I outline a series of knowledge exchange projects with museums, galleries, artists and designers, where we have applied our findings and methods to improve infants’ access to the Arts.
Bio: Professor Anna Franklin is the lead of Sussex Colour Group, co-lead of the Sussex Baby Lab and co-lead of the newly founded Sussex Centre for Sensory and Perceptual Diversity at the University of Sussex. Her research investigates human perception of colour, light, scenes and images, and it blends vision science, developmental science and cross-cultural fieldwork. The European Research Council have been a major funder of her research, and she regularly leads knowledge exchange projects with industry and the arts.
This talk is part of the MMB & PANC Speaker Series 2025–26 a collaborative initiative between the MSc programmes in Music, Mind and Brain (MMB) and Psychology of Aesthetics, Neuroscience and Creativity (PANC). The series brings together world-leading researchers and practitioners working at the intersection of psychology, aesthetics, music, creativity, and the arts. Full details of the 2025-26 speaker series: https://www.musicmindbrain.com/news-and-events/mmb-panc-speaker-series
Please join us in person if you can. Or click here to join the lecture on Teams.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 20 Nov 2025 | 4:00pm - 5:00pm |
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