The independence of aesthetic judgments about art from personal preferences about that art was investigated with abstract paintings which were shown in different orientations. Two groups of undergraduate subjects, N = 24 and N = 22, judged works by Davis, DeKooning, and Pollock in either their upright (correct) or inverted (incorrect) orientations. While correctly and incorrectly positioned paintings were equally liked, the former were judged as more appropriately oriented than the latter. The results indicate: 1) the independence of aesthetic perception from personal preference; and 2) that the perception of orientation is more dependent on the properties of the stimulus than on recognition.
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