Table 1.

Mean ratings (and standard deviations) of icon aesthetic appeal, visual complexity, concreteness and familiarity in each experimental condition and the results of one-way analyses and Newman-Keuls comparisons examining differences between icon ratings in each condition in Experiment 1. The Appeal values and statistics are from McDougall & Reppa (2008), and the Complexity, Concreteness, and Familiarity values are from McDougall et al. (1999). All ratings were on a 1–5 scale, with 5 representing a high value of the characteristic concerned. The symbols ‘>’ and ‘<’ mean higher and lower ratings respectively, while the ‘=’ symbol means no difference in the rated dimension. AC Appealing complex, AS appealing simple, UC unappealing complex, US unappealing simple

	Icon type				Results of statistical analyses
Icon characteristics	AC	AS	UC	US	F-value	Newman-Keuls comparisons
Appeal	3.50 (0.10)	3.49 (0.53)	2.45 (0.15)	2.61 (0.10)	F(3,36) = 40.03, P < .001	AC = AS > UC = US
Complexity	3.49 (0.15)	1.68 (0.80)	3.69 (0.26)	1.82 (0.23)	F(3,36) = 48.48, P < .001	AC = UC > AS = US
Concreteness	3.85 (1.11)	3.61 (0.88)	3.26 (0.90)	2.27 (0.84)	F < 1, P > .05	AC = AS = UC = US
Familiarity	3.19 (0.62)	3.59 (0.94)	2.68 (0.87)	2.96 (0.85)	F(3,36) = 2.17, P > .05	AC = AS = UC = US