Effect of Face-Masking on Aesthetic Judgment

Abstract

Masked and unmasked university students, 11 women and 9 men in each group, applied a 20-scale form of the semantic differential to each of 10 paintings. Subjects chose their masks from eight articulated faces. On balance the pattern of differences in mean scale values for the two groups suggests that masking enhanced aesthetic awareness. Masked subjects judged the paintings significantly softer, more complex, more luminous, and sweeter. In a supplementary study 60 students, 40 women and 20 men, applied the same set of scales to the masks themselves. Alpha factoring, based on the mean ratings for all subjects, and equamax rotation was performed for scales as variables. Four factors emerged, in order: Temperament, Visual Tension, Evaluation and Dynamism. The mask most often chosen in Exp. I was judged most benign and most meaningful. Such a mask seems especially helpful to the aesthetic response.