Table 3.

Mean ratings (and standard deviations) for icon concreteness, aesthetic appeal, visual complexity and familiarity for each type of icon presented in Experiment 2. The Appeal values and statistics are from McDougall & Reppa (2008), and the Complexity, Concreteness, and Familiarity values are from McDougall et al., (1999). The symbols ‘>’ and ‘<’ mean higher and lower ratings respectively, while the ‘=’ symbol means no difference in the rated dimension. AA apealing abstract, AC appealing concrete, UA unappealing abstract, UC unappealing concrete

	Icon type				Results of statistical analyses
Icon characteristics	AA	AC	UA	UC	F-value	Newman-Keuls comparisons
Appeal	3.52 (.18)	3.5 (.10)	2.51 (.11)	2.58 (.17)	F (3, 36) = 199.77, P < .001	AA = AC > UA = UC
Complexity	3.00 (.53)	2.67 (.95)	3.1 (.75)	3.22 (.76)	F (3, 36) = 1.37, P > .05	AA = AC = UA = UC
Concreteness	2.06 (.35)	4.57 (.25)	2.17 (.20)	4.55 (.15)	F (3, 36) = 278.48, P < .001	AA = UA < AC = UC
Familiarity	2.47 (.96)	3.7 (.43)	2.08 (.57)	3.78 (.35)	F (3, 36) = 18.89, P < .001	AA = UA < AC = UC