Review Article

A Review of EEG and fMRI Measuring Aesthetic Processing in Visual User Experience Research

Table 2

ERP contributions to UX and UI aesthetic designs.

ERPAmplitudeContribution of ERP to UI and UX designs

C1(Positivity or negativity) 25–125 msC1 reflects the visual activity and attention effects in V1 [74].
P100(Positive wave) 50–150 msP100 results from early ERP amplitude at the occipital lobe [10]. Some research found it reflected early visuoperceptual processes mediated by attention. P100 is extremely sensitive to high contrast color combination, which is suitable for user experience design research [10].
P200(Positive wave) 150–250 msIt reveals a P200 amplitude increase in response to ugly images, which was probably the result of a negative bias in attentional processes [11, 75]. It is also sensitive to negative emotional pictures. P200 is also the charge of the design affordance [76].
P300(Positive wave) 250–350 msThe P300 peak is shorter for color stimuli [77]. It reflects the distribution of attention and decision-making [25]. It is more positive for consistent and beautiful faces [50]. On the contrary, P300 is also used to explore emotion processing of first impression between emotion and attention [69].
N100(Negative wave) 80–120 msN100 is associated not only with the physical features in reflection to the attention level but also with the attractiveness of stimuli [78]. It relates to package design.
N170(Negative wave) 120–200 msN170 is the ideal ERP component for facial identification and attractiveness [79, 80]. Happy emotion elicited larger N170 amplitudes [81].
N200(Negative wave) 200–350 msN200 shows the negative component peaking at 200–350 ms. It reveals the perception of beauty, especially of geometric shapes [69].
N300(Negative wave) 270–400 msN300 is responsive to picture stimuli and affordance [82, 83].
N400(Negative wave) 350–500 msN400 activates between poststimulus onset with a frontal-central to central-parietal scalp distribution. N400 is concerned with the measure of semantic processing of words or pictures [83, 84].
N450(Negative wave) 380–530 msAttractive user interface design evokes more negative amplitudes, which shows a larger N450 [73].
LPP(Late positive wave) 550–770 msLate positive potential mainly oversees delayed aesthetic perception and understanding of the objects [85]. LPP shows a larger response to low aesthetic interfaces than to high aesthetic ones [40].
VPP(Positive wave) 160–200 msFacial stimulus and representing the stage of face structural encoding [80]. It is associated with the visual memory processing because it is closer to the hippocampus.

UX, user experience; EEG, electroencephalograph; UI, user interface; ERP, event-related potential.