Abstract: Visual stimuli repetitions alter both our visual processing and our preference. Previous studies suggest that our visual preference over repeated stimuli is based on visual categorization. Specifically, the visual preference for a human face increases over repetition, indicating a familiarity preference; in contrast, the visual preference for a natural scene picture decreases over repetition, indicating a novelty preference (Park et al., 2010). However, little is known about what are the most critical factors that may cause the different human visual preferences. To address this question, we examined whether human preference could be modulated by low-level visual features (inversion, contrast negation), attractive levels (photographs, artworks) and biological elements (pairs of ears, pairs of hands). Firstly, we replicated familiarity preference of face photographs and novelty preference of natural scene photographs, and these two preferences were significantly attenuated by inversion and contrast negation. Secondly, we found that the preference trends of artworks were the same as those in photographs. No effects were found for attractive levels, indicating that visual information in artworks fulfilled the fundamental requirement of preference. Furthermore, we found that human ears showed familiarity preference, similar to faces, while human hands did not. These results suggested that studying other object categories was promising in characterizing preference. Overall, the current study revealed low-level visual features influence human visual preference, suggesting the associated image processing serves to generate human visual preference.

Key words: human preference, repetition effect, face, natural scene