ABSTRACT
Aesthetics is often understood as the study of sensory perception or recognition through the sensations, the actual translation of the original Greek term aistanomai. Aesthetic experience intrigues and is self-rewarding. The mechanisms underlying these kinds of experiences are the subject of aesthetic research. Thus aesthetics cannot be called simply the science of perception–it is a perception characterized by the special quality of appeal and captivation. Aesthetic perception is the precondition for art and often the artists play with our aesthetic experience when producing art for arts sake. The perceptual biases which determine our aesthetic perception occur at three different levels: first, our basic biases, which we share with the higher vertebrates; next, our species-specific biases; and, finally, our specifically cultural perceptual biases. Order and unity is another characteristic of aesthetic perception. It permits subsequent recognition and therefore familiarity and orientation. Aesthetic needs are coupled with other functions in body adornment and decoration.
