ABSTRACT
Although our culture is largely visually-orientated and our first encounter with an object is invariably visual, the original Greek aisthetika meant ‘that which is perceptible through the senses’, so an inclusive definition of aesthetics is concerned not just with visual form, colour, or texture, but with understanding and predicting the effects of information from all the senses on human perceptions and cognition. The sensations which are aroused from sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing, balance, movement and muscular effort, all help to form an aesthetic appreciation of an object or environment. Each sense is finely tuned: our senses are extremely discriminating and able to distinguish, often subconsciously, very subtle detail.
