Why Do We Find Symmetry So Pleasing?

What is it about the arrangement of petals on a flower or a perfectly symmetrical display of soup cans that catches our eye? Our brains seem wired for it, but why?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff,
Lauren Vogel bomb here. Think of a pair of synchronized divers,
or the wings on a butterfly, or the vaulted ceiling
of a cathedral. These are some of the things that
most people find visually very pleasing. But why. The answer
has to do with symmetry. Most objects in the real

(00:25):
world are symmetrical. This is particularly true of nature, the
radial symmetry of a starfish or flower petals, the symmetrical
efficiency of a hexagonal honeycomb, or the uniquely symmetrical crystal
patterns of a snowflake. In fact, asymmetry is often a
sign of illness or danger in the natural world, and
of course, human beings are symmetrical, at least mostly and

(00:47):
on the outside. You know, some internal organs like the
heart and liver are off center. Decades of research into
sexual attraction have proven that both men and women find
symmetrical faces sexier than asymmetrical ones. The leading explanation is
the physical symmetry is an outward sign of good health,
although large scale studies have shown no significant health differences
in people with symmetrical or asymmetrical faces. Since severe physical

(01:10):
asymmetries are strong indicators of genetic disorders. Our brains might
just be overreacting. The simple explanation for our attraction to
symmetry is that it's familiar symmetrical objects and images played
by the rules that our brains are programmed to recognize easily.
Physicist Alan Lightman wrote about this in his book The
Accidental Universe The World You Thought You Knew. He wrote,

(01:31):
I would claim that symmetry represents order, and we crave
order in this strange universe. We find ourselves in the
search for symmetry, and the emotional pleasure we derive when
we find it must help us make sense of the
world around us, just as we find satisfaction in the
repetition of the seasons and in the reliability of friendships.
Symmetry is also economy. Symmetry is simplicity, Symmetry is elegance.

(01:54):
At the esoteric end of the explanation spectrum, Lightment is
saying that the satisfaction we feel at seeing a creatively
symmetrical work of art or a perfectly stacked display of
soup cans at the grocery store is that the stuff
of our brains is inseparable from the stuff of nature.
The neurons and synapses in our brains and the processes
by which they communicate, connect, and conjure thoughts evolved in

(02:15):
parallel to snowflakes and starfish. If nature is symmetrical, then
so are our minds. On the more basic end, the
pleasure we get from symmetry could simply be due to
our minds need to find patterns and attempt to make
sense of things, especially quickly and with a limited data set.
Considered the Stalt psychology, named after an influential school of
visual perception born in Germany in the nineteen twenties. The

(02:38):
famous and famously mistranslated gives Stalt motto is the whole
is other than the sum of its parts, not the
whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Our
brain is more than a calculator adding up the details
of a scene. It's primed to recognize signs of order
in the accidental chaos and to follow certain rules or
shortcuts to make sense of the world. Symmetry is one

(02:59):
of those short cuts. We spoke with Mary Peterson, a
psychology professor and director of the Visual Perception Laboratory at
the University of Arizona. As she says, the brain doesn't
like things that are accidental. We either learn or born
with certain priors or shortcuts that help our brains quickly
determined that we're looking at one particular object or another.

(03:20):
We also spoke with Johann vachu Launch, an experimental psychologist
from Belgium who specializes in visual perception and how our
brains organized the constant incoming flow of information. He agrees
as symmetry is not just a design principle of the
outside world. He said, you can also see symmetry as
one of these major principles driving the self organization of

(03:40):
the brain. All these tendencies toward good organization and simple
organization are also principles of symmetry in the dynamics of
the brain itself. But on the other hand, too much
symmetry can be a tad boring. While perfectly symmetrical designs
are more pleasing to the brain, they're not necessarily more beautiful.
Both art novices and experts prefer art that strikes, says

(04:01):
vocumons an optimal level of stimulation, not too complex, not
too simple, not too chaotic, and not too orderly. Indeed,
the Japanese have an esthetic principle called quinsey, which is
all about creating balance in a composition using asymmetry or irregularity.

(04:23):
Today's episode was written by Dave Rouse and produced by
Tristan McNeil. For more on this and tons of other
brainy topics, visit our home planet, how stuff works dot com.