Disruptions of Roundness
Humans demonstrate an inherent appreciation for the disruption of simple round objects in words, idioms, stories, games, sports, art, symbols, mythology and sex. Other animals appear to have similar feelings.
“But the peach rushed on across the countryside — on and on and on, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. Cowsheds, stables, pigsties, barns, bungalows, hayricks, anything that got in its way went toppling over like a nine-pin…. These cliffs are the most famous in the whole of England, and they are hundreds of feet high. Below them, the sea is deep and cold and hungry…. and when it reached the edge of the cliff it seemed to leap up into the sky and hang there suspended for a few seconds, still turning over and over in the air… Then it began to fall… Down… Down… Down… Down… Down… SMACK! It hit the water with a colossal splash and sank like a stone.”
— Ronald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach (2007)
A general bias in sensory systems and brains appears to be responsible for a roundness disruption effect in phenomena under aesthetic selection throughout the animal world. Humans are universally preoccupied with the disruption of spheres, circles, points and other roundness including that of the body. When…
