Through the centuries great claims have been made for the special aesthetic value of the Golden Section. Reviews of the experimental literature yield a mixed verdict, some studies supporting the Golden Section hypothesis, others disproving it. A series of experiments is described in which the aesthetic quality of the Golden Section was systematically compared with the aesthetic appeal of the ratio of 1.5. It was found that the Golden Section does not have a special aesthetic quality as compared to the ration 1.5, and that other characteristics of visual patterns are far more important from an aesthetic point of view.
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