Aesthetic insights from infant looking

Developmental evidence can inform theories of aesthetic experience. We review research showing that infants look longer at the faces, colours, art, architecture, and kinetic displays that adults prefer or judge to be more pleasant, attractive, or beautiful. We discuss the theoretical implications of these infant-adult correspondences. Whilst these relationships identify developmentally early visual biases that may contribute to later aesthetic responses, we argue that infant looking time alone cannot establish liking, positive valence, beauty, or aesthetic experience in infancy, nor can it isolate "innate" or purely sensory mechanisms. We outline how future developmental research could use richer gaze, psychophysiological, and neural measures, combined with experimental manipulations, and longitudinal and cross-cultural designs to clarify when and how visual attention becomes linked with valuation and aesthetic experience.