Visual Perception of Symmetry - I

Here

are the 24 possible 4-color colorings of flags with that particular rectangular design. The experiment, conducted among 15 undergraduate students during the Spring semester (2011), consisted of a two-step choice process:

[1] In each row of the above figure, choose the flag you like the most, and record its label (A,B,C, or D);

[2] choose the flags that are the most similar to your first choice and order them subsequently, so that the flag falling in the last position seems the least similar to your first favorite choice.

For example, if in a given row the favorite flag was in column B, followed by the flags in columns D, C, and A then that row gets the ordering B, D, C, A. Each student ranked all six rows in the figure above.

We will look at the results of this experiment in the light of symmetry arguments. I invite you to conduct the experiment with your colleagues, and perhaps share your results with us.

Last revised 02/23/2011
These  postings are based on "Symmetry Studies An  Introduction to the Analysis of Structured Data in Applications"  Cambridge Press (2008)