Evolutionary aesthetics is the attempt to understand the aesthetic judgement of human beings and their spontaneous distinction between "beauty" and "ugliness" as a biologically adapted ability to make important decisions in life. The hypothesis is - both in the area of "natural beauty" and in sexuality, with regard to landscape preferences, but also in the area of "artificial beauty" (i.e. in art and design) - that beauty opens up fitness opportunities, while ugliness holds fitness risks. In this book, this adaptive view of aesthetics is developed theoretically, presented on the basis of numerous examples, and its consequences for evolutionary anthropology are illuminated.

I The Problem

Darwinian Aesthetics Informs Traditional Aesthetics
II From Is to Beauty - From Perception to Cognition
The Beauties and the Beautiful - Some Considerations from the Perspective of Neuronal Aesthetics
The Role of Evolved Perceptual Biases in Art and Design
From Sign and Schema to Iconic Representation. Evolutionary Aesthetics of Pictorial Art
III The Fitness of Beauty - Aesthetics and Adaptation
Beauty and Sex Appeal: Sexual Selection of Aesthetic Preferences
Beyond Nature Versus Culture: A Multiple Fitness Analysis of Variations in Grooming
Aesthetic Preferences in the World of Artifacts - Adaptations for the Evaluation of Honest Signals?
Handaxes: The First Aesthetic Artefacts
IV Modular Aesthetics
Human Habitat Preferences: A Generative Territory for Evolutionary Aesthetics Research
Bodies in Motion: A Window to the Soul
Perfumes
Do Women Have Evolved Adaptation for Extra-Pair Copulation?.