Within this general domain, he developed a research line into the factors that contribute to evaluating facial attractiveness.
In December 2023 he was co-Editor of a theme issue compiled and edited by Jacopo Frascaroli, Helmut Leder, Elvira Brattico and Sander Van de Cruys on "Art, aesthetics and predictive processing: theoretical and empirical perspectives" in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
[2] This program was introduced as a cognitive model of the appreciation of art in a paper[3] published in the British Journal of Psychology.
Part of his research was also featured in the 2018-19 Exhibition Beauty by Sagmeister & Walsh, first in the MAK in Vienna, later in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Bregenz.
Leder’s research record has been recognized with awards from some of the main professional associations in psychological aesthetics.