Grzywacz Norberto M, Aleem Hassan
Department of Psychology, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States.
Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Neuroscience, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States.
Front Neurosci. 2022 Mar 22;16:805658. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2022.805658. eCollection 2022.
Obtaining information from the world is important for survival. The brain, therefore, has special mechanisms to extract as much information as possible from sensory stimuli. Hence, given its importance, the amount of available information may underlie aesthetic values. Such information-based aesthetic values would be significant because they would compete with others to drive decision-making. In this article, we ask, "What is the evidence that amount of information support aesthetic values?" An important concept in the measurement of informational volume is entropy. Research on aesthetic values has thus used Shannon entropy to evaluate the contribution of quantity of information. We review here the concepts of information and aesthetic values, and research on the visual and auditory systems to probe whether the brain uses entropy or other relevant measures, specially, Fisher information, in aesthetic decisions. We conclude that information measures contribute to these decisions in two ways: first, the absolute quantity of information can modulate aesthetic preferences for certain sensory patterns. However, the preference for volume of information is highly individualized, with information-measures competing with organizing principles, such as rhythm and symmetry. In addition, people tend to be resistant to too much entropy, but not necessarily, high amounts of Fisher information. We show that this resistance may stem in part from the distribution of amount of information in natural sensory stimuli. Second, the measurement of entropic-like quantities over time reveal that they can modulate aesthetic decisions by varying degrees of surprise given temporally integrated expectations. We propose that amount of information underpins complex aesthetic values, possibly informing the brain on the allocation of resources or the situational appropriateness of some cognitive models.
从外界获取信息对生存至关重要。因此,大脑具有特殊机制,以便从感官刺激中提取尽可能多的信息。鉴于其重要性,可用信息量可能是审美价值的基础。这种基于信息的审美价值很重要,因为它们会相互竞争以驱动决策。在本文中,我们提出问题:“有哪些证据表明信息量支持审美价值?” 信息量测量中的一个重要概念是熵。因此,关于审美价值的研究使用香农熵来评估信息量的贡献。我们在此回顾信息和审美价值的概念,以及对视觉和听觉系统的研究,以探究大脑在审美决策中是否使用熵或其他相关度量,特别是费希尔信息。我们得出结论,信息度量以两种方式对这些决策产生影响:第一,信息的绝对量可以调节对某些感官模式的审美偏好。然而,对信息量的偏好高度个性化,信息度量与诸如节奏和对称等组织原则相互竞争。此外,人们往往对过多的熵有抵触,但不一定抵触大量的费希尔信息。我们表明,这种抵触可能部分源于自然感官刺激中信息量的分布。第二,对一段时间内类似熵的量的测量表明,它们可以通过在时间整合预期下给出不同程度的惊喜来调节审美决策。我们提出,信息量是复杂审美价值的基础,可能为大脑在资源分配或某些认知模型的情境适宜性方面提供信息。