Natural scene statistics mediate the perception of image complexity
Nicolas Gauvrit, Fernando Soler-Toscano, Hector Zenil

TL;DR
This paper investigates how natural scene statistics influence human perception of image complexity, revealing that our perception is partly shaped by the frequency of patterns in natural environments.
Contribution
It demonstrates that natural scene statistics mediate the perception of image complexity, linking perceptual judgments to natural pattern frequencies and extending prior findings.
Findings
Perception of complexity is partly mediated by natural scene statistics.
Natural pattern frequencies influence subjective complexity assessments.
The study reanalyzes previous data and provides new experimental evidence.
Abstract
Humans are sensitive to complexity and regularity in patterns. The subjective perception of pattern complexity is correlated to algorithmic (Kolmogorov-Chaitin) complexity as defined in computer science, but also to the frequency of naturally occurring patterns. However, the possible mediational role of natural frequencies in the perception of algorithmic complexity remains unclear. Here we reanalyze Hsu et al. (2010) through a mediational analysis, and complement their results in a new experiment. We conclude that human perception of complexity seems partly shaped by natural scenes statistics, thereby establishing a link between the perception of complexity and the effect of natural scene statistics.
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
