Some images are literally eyesores. Scientists have long known that the wrong mix of shapes and colors can cause discomfort, headaches, or even seizures. Now, they're starting to figure out why. Psychologist Arnold Wilkins of the University of Essex, U.K., and artist Debbie Ayles-who creates paintings inspired by her migraines-used a Sciart grant from the Wellcome Trust to tease out the keys to annoying art. Focus groups at an exhibition of Ayles's work last year helped identify narrow stripes and juxtaposed complementary colors as inducers of discomfort. Wilkins then compared the subjective ratings of a variety of paintings with each picture's energy intensity, measured by Fourier analysis of stripes' spatial frequency.
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