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Looking Into Mona Lisa’s Smiling Eyes: Allusion to an Illusion

We present results from two experiments aimed at studying the direction of Mona Lisa’s gaze and its affective expression. In experiment 1 we studied the effect of retinal image size on the perception of her gaze by manipulating observation distances of a high-quality print of the painting. Participa...

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Autores principales: Zavagno, Daniele, Actis-Grosso, Rossana, Daneyko, Olga
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9283865/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35845241
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.878288
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author Zavagno, Daniele
Actis-Grosso, Rossana
Daneyko, Olga
author_facet Zavagno, Daniele
Actis-Grosso, Rossana
Daneyko, Olga
author_sort Zavagno, Daniele
collection PubMed
description We present results from two experiments aimed at studying the direction of Mona Lisa’s gaze and its affective expression. In experiment 1 we studied the effect of retinal image size on the perception of her gaze by manipulating observation distances of a high-quality print of the painting. Participants (N = 30) were asked to answer a simple question (is the person portrayed looking at you?) from six different distances ranging from 55 to 755 cm. One group of participants started evaluations from 55 cm; the other group did the opposite. Results show an effect of distance on the perception of Mona Lisa’s gaze as staring at the observer: from the furthest distances, the impression of a staring Mona Lisa is robust; from the nearest distances, such impression becomes ambiguous. Experiment 2 presents data concerning the direction of Mona Lisa’s gaze and whether this appears to be smiling, derived from an experiment aimed at studying the impression of gaze (direction and emotional content) in portraits (paintings and photographs). Only data concerning Mona Lisa are reported. Participants (N = 41) were randomly assigned to one of two groups: on a LCD screen, one group saw the entire head, and the other group saw only a section reproducing Mona Lisa’s eyes. Experimental sessions were two: in session 1 participants had to decide whether the image (whole-head or eyes only) was looking at them; in session 2 participants had to decide whether the head (or the eyes) was smiling. RTs from the two groups of participants were not statistically significant. Results for session 1 confirm experiment 1’s general findings. Results for session 2 clearly show that Mona Lisa is not only smiling with her face, but also with her eyes. Results are discussed in relation to the literature on Mona Lisa’s gaze and smile.
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spelling pubmed-92838652022-07-16 Looking Into Mona Lisa’s Smiling Eyes: Allusion to an Illusion Zavagno, Daniele Actis-Grosso, Rossana Daneyko, Olga Front Hum Neurosci Human Neuroscience We present results from two experiments aimed at studying the direction of Mona Lisa’s gaze and its affective expression. In experiment 1 we studied the effect of retinal image size on the perception of her gaze by manipulating observation distances of a high-quality print of the painting. Participants (N = 30) were asked to answer a simple question (is the person portrayed looking at you?) from six different distances ranging from 55 to 755 cm. One group of participants started evaluations from 55 cm; the other group did the opposite. Results show an effect of distance on the perception of Mona Lisa’s gaze as staring at the observer: from the furthest distances, the impression of a staring Mona Lisa is robust; from the nearest distances, such impression becomes ambiguous. Experiment 2 presents data concerning the direction of Mona Lisa’s gaze and whether this appears to be smiling, derived from an experiment aimed at studying the impression of gaze (direction and emotional content) in portraits (paintings and photographs). Only data concerning Mona Lisa are reported. Participants (N = 41) were randomly assigned to one of two groups: on a LCD screen, one group saw the entire head, and the other group saw only a section reproducing Mona Lisa’s eyes. Experimental sessions were two: in session 1 participants had to decide whether the image (whole-head or eyes only) was looking at them; in session 2 participants had to decide whether the head (or the eyes) was smiling. RTs from the two groups of participants were not statistically significant. Results for session 1 confirm experiment 1’s general findings. Results for session 2 clearly show that Mona Lisa is not only smiling with her face, but also with her eyes. Results are discussed in relation to the literature on Mona Lisa’s gaze and smile. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-07-01 /pmc/articles/PMC9283865/ /pubmed/35845241 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.878288 Text en Copyright © 2022 Zavagno, Actis-Grosso and Daneyko. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Human Neuroscience
Zavagno, Daniele
Actis-Grosso, Rossana
Daneyko, Olga
Looking Into Mona Lisa’s Smiling Eyes: Allusion to an Illusion
title Looking Into Mona Lisa’s Smiling Eyes: Allusion to an Illusion
title_full Looking Into Mona Lisa’s Smiling Eyes: Allusion to an Illusion
title_fullStr Looking Into Mona Lisa’s Smiling Eyes: Allusion to an Illusion
title_full_unstemmed Looking Into Mona Lisa’s Smiling Eyes: Allusion to an Illusion
title_short Looking Into Mona Lisa’s Smiling Eyes: Allusion to an Illusion
title_sort looking into mona lisa’s smiling eyes: allusion to an illusion
topic Human Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9283865/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35845241
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.878288
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