This is not entirely surprising, because as a visual attribute of the world around us appeal is perceived extremely quickly – within 50 ms (e.g., Lindgaard et al., 2006) – rendering it a good candidate to influence time-critical performance. However, only a handful of studies using a variety of tasks have examined whether visual aesthetic appeal might influence performance and findings have been mixed (see Thielsch, Scharfen, et al., 2019b, for a recent review and meta-analysis). Some studies have found no effect of stimulus appeal on task performance (e.g., Hartmann et al., 2007 Sonderegger et al., 2012 Thüring & Mahlke, 2007 Tractinsky et al., 2000). Other studies have found positive effects of appeal on performance suggesting that appealing stimuli can increase performance efficiency (e.g., Moshagen et al., 2009 Reppa et al., 2021 Reppa & McDougall, 2015 Sonderegger & Sauer, 2010). In contrast, decreased performance efficiency for appealing stimuli has sometimes been reported (e.g., Ben-Bassat et al., 2006 Meyer et al., 1997 Sauer & Sonderegger, 2009, 2011 Tufte, 1983). The current study used a classic visual search task to determine whether appeal is a visual attribute that can guide the deployment of attention: of particular interest was whether any performance boost due to appeal affected search efficiency or search times. Use of classic visual search tasks allow calculation of search slopes based on the linear relationship between search time and set size. Search slopes are commonly used to determine whether stimulus dimensions – such as aesthetic appeal – can be attributes that efficiently guide the deployment of attention (e.g., see Wolfe & Horowitz, 2004, 2017, for reviews). In general, a stimulus attribute can be classed as attention-guiding, when it is independent of set size and its search slope is flat at near zero. Such flat slopes are typically called very efficient, while slopes of between 5 and 10 ms are called quite efficient, and slopes of over 10 ms inefficient. Research to date suggests that stimulus attributes rarely produce near zero search slopes although attributes that are threatening or evolutionarily relevant are notable exceptions (Becker et al., 2011 Eastwood et al., 2001 Fox et al., 2001 Öhman et al., 2001). Many stimulus dimensions, however, lead to more or less efficient searches without necessarily producing ‘pop-out’ effects (Golan et al., 2014 Hershler & Hochstein, 2005 see also Frischen et al., 2008 for a review). Alternatively, a stimulus attribute may simply speed up or slow down search times without affecting search efficiency, i.e., there is no effect on the search slope but overall response times (RTs) during search are changed (Della Libera & Chelazzi, 2009 Lee & Shomstein, 2014). In the present investigation we examined the effect of aesthetic appeal on visual search performance. However, stimulus characteristics known to influence performance are highly correlated with appeal and are known to have a significant effect on performance.
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