Data and code from: Do infants have a sense of beauty? A study using kinetic dot displays

The present study investigated the emergence of a visual preference for
beautiful kinetic dot displays during development. The displays were
previously judged for relative beauty by an independent group of adults.
Preferential looking was measured with an eye tracker in 4- to
24-month-old infants and adults. Analysis of the overall preferential
looking response over the 5 s of stimulus display indicated that adults’
judgment predicted preferential looking at all ages tested. Analysis of
the time-course of this attentional response indicated two different
mechanisms: (1) a fast orienting response toward motion patterns that were
not judged as beautiful by adults, and (2) a slower but longer duration
response toward motion patterns that were judged as beautiful by adults.
The contribution of these two mechanisms to the overall preferential
looking response changed with age in a consistent manner. Because the
beauty ratings of adults were associated with a later but longer duration
visual attention response in infants, and most preferred patterns differed
in many aspects from nonpreferred patterns, we propose that a sense of
beauty, defined in adults as a pleasurable mental state leading to
sustained visual attention, may influence behavior by 4 months of age when
looking at kinetic dot displays.