On the Aesthetic Perception of Gymnastic Body Postures and Their Corresponding Figural Shapes

Object’s, observer’s, and the context’s characteristics contribute to the aesthetic perception of motor skills. Whether non-biological and biological objects are perceived similarly or differently when based upon the same motor stimuli remains open. Different gradations of body angles within gymnastic body postures and their corresponding figural shapes are investigated in relation to the aesthetic perception of observers with different sensory-motor experiences. Results indicate that observers’ aesthetic perception scores of body postures increase the larger the split angle, while observers’ aesthetic perception scores of figural shapes interact with observer group and stimuli gradation. The observer’s different sensory-motor experiences seem less related to the aesthetic perception of body postures than to the aesthetic perception figural shapes. Although the overall shape of body postures and figural shapes is the same, additional perceptual and contextual information within and beyond those stimuli seem to be related to an observer’s aesthetic perception.