Participant Information and Consent
Please read this information before taking part. By continuing to the experiment and ticking the consent box, you confirm that you have read and understood this page.
Study Title
Defining the Topology of Beauty: An Empirical Evaluation of Beauty Preference
Who Is Running This Study?
This study is run by Joshua Massey-Thompson, an MSc student in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, Augustin d'Aboville, a BSc Biology student at Imperial College London, and Professor Armand Leroi, a Professor of Evolutionary Biology at Imperial College London.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to understand how people judge the beauty of vase shapes. You will be shown generated vase silhouettes and asked to choose the one you find most beautiful.
What You Will Be Asked To Do
You will complete five runs of a short selection task. In each run, you will make repeated choices between vase images, and then choose a final preferred vase.
What Data We Collect
We collect anonymous study data, including:
- your vase choices and response times;
- derived shape parameters used to generate vase forms;
- demographic information you provide (for example: age, gender, sexual orientation, region, disability, and pottery experience);
- technical session information (for example: language, device type, screen size, and browser metadata).
Sensitive Data
Some questions may include sensitive categories (for example sexual orientation and disability identity). You may choose "Prefer not to say" where available.
Legal Basis and Consent
Your participation is voluntary and based on consent. You may stop at any time by leaving the site.
Data Storage and Security
Study data are stored in secured research systems used by the research team. We remove direct identifiers and analyse results in aggregate where possible. We do not share your data with third parties and it is not possible to identify you from the data.
How Long Data Are Kept
Data are retained only for as long as necessary for research analysis and publication, and then managed in line with institutional data-retention policy.
Risks and Benefits
Risks are expected to be minimal and mainly relate to sharing questionnaire responses. There is no direct personal benefit, but your participation contributes to seminal research on visual preference.
Access to Data
We are not able to identify you from the data, and we do not share data with third parties. However, anonymised data may be shared with other researchers for research purposes.
Contact
Study contact: vase.evolution@gmail.com
Eligibility
Participants must be 18 years or older to take part. By continuing, you confirm that you meet this eligibility criterion.
Consent Statement
By ticking the consent box on the metadata form and continuing, you confirm that:
- you have read and understood this participant information;
- you understand what data are collected and how they will be used;
- you agree to take part voluntarily.
Disclaimer
You will not necessarily find all vases you select beautiful, and you may find some vases you do not select beautiful. This is expected and does not reflect on you as a person or mean the experiment has failed! We care about every single one of your choices and will use them to understand how people judge beauty.