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Press, 20 July 1979, Page 19

Random reminder

THE GLAD EYE

An American professor, Roger N. Shepard of Stanford University, has come up with a scientific explanation for the human perception of beauty. “It would seem that the visual cortex must already have its own inner representation of the beautiful that, somewhat in the manner of a set of cutout patterns or templates, can be matched against any sensory input to permit a determination of beauty according to goodness of fit,” the professor says. And who are the rest of us to dispute what he says? Especially since most of the rest of us won’t have the faintest idea of what he is talking about. We know that templates are not the same thing as hotplates, and that the cortex is an area of the brain rather than a British motor car (“drive the 2-litre Cortex down to the dairy, and see for yourself why more Cortexes are driven to the dairy than any other make of car”). But what’s all this about “sensory input”? It sounds like a sort of plug.

And “goodness of fit” sounds as though it has more to do with off-the-peg suits rather than the perception of beauty. However, our lack of comprehension is our problem rather than the professor’s. He certainly has a way with words. Describing the “pre-awakening vision” which gave rise to his insight into the nature of beauty, he says that he saw . s a latticework of delicately beveled edges with the appearance of polished and gleaming gold framed the rhombic regions, and the whole array shimmered before me in perfect amber and gold splendour ■ . Now that is all very well if you happen to be turned on by rhombic regions, whatever they are. But some of us are excited by regions which have much more to do with arms and legs and —ah — bosoms, than with rhombs, which we have just ascertained are oblique equilateral parallelograms. Still, each to his own, and as they say, the sensory input of beauty is in the visual cortex of the beholder.