The Beyond Reality Image Collection (BRIC)

The Beyond Reality Image Collection (BRIC) is a set of 648 photos, some painted by an artist and some generated by artificial intelligence. Unlike previous photosets, the BRIC focused on nonrealistic visuals. This collection includes abstract and non-abstract paintings and nonrealistic photographs depicting objects, scenes, animals, humans, and fantastical creatures with varying degrees of unreal elements. We collected evaluative ratings of the photos, using a convenience sample of 16,208 participants in a total of 25,321 sessions. We used multiple evaluation measures: binary positive/negative and like/dislike categorization, seven-point ratings on these attributes, both under no time pressure and under time pressure, and evaluative priming scores. The mean evaluation of the photos on the different measures was highly correlated, but some photos consistently elicited a discrepant evaluative reaction between the measures. The BRIC is a valuable resource for eliciting evaluative reactions and can contribute to research on evaluative processes and affective responses.