Boselie F, Leeuwenberg E
Perception. 1986;15(3):331-54. doi: 10.1068/p150331.
The minimum principle states that a perceiver will see the simplest possible interpretation of a pattern. Some theorists of human perception take this principle as a core explanatory concept. Others, especially Rock and Hochberg, hold the view that a perceptual minimum principle is untenable. Rock presents a great number of demonstrations which, in his opinion, rule out the minimum principle. Hochberg states that 'impossible' figures especially present a difficulty for this principle. It is argued here that, in order to test the minimum principle, a method is needed to describe interpretations of patterns in such a way that they can be ordered according to simplicity. To achieve this, Leeuwenberg's coding system was used. The analyses reported here of the patterns which Rock produces as evidence against the principle show that, contrary to Rock's claim, the way these patterns are preferentially perceived provides strong support for the minimum principle. Next, it is demonstrated that interpreting certain patterns as 'impossible' figures is not incompatible with the principle. Finally, it is argued that a test of the minimum principle is necessarily conflated with two other hypotheses, one concerning the metric of simplicity and one concerning the task conception of the experimental subjects.
最小原则指出，感知者会对一种模式做出尽可能简单的解释。一些人类感知理论学家将这一原则作为核心解释概念。另一些人，尤其是洛克和霍赫贝格，则认为感知最小原则是站不住脚的。洛克提出了大量的论证，在他看来，这些论证排除了最小原则。霍赫贝格指出，“不可能”图形尤其给这一原则带来了困难。本文认为，为了检验最小原则，需要一种方法来描述模式的解释，以便能够根据简单性对它们进行排序。为了实现这一点，使用了李文伯格的编码系统。本文对洛克提出的作为反对该原则证据的模式进行的分析表明，与洛克的主张相反，这些模式被优先感知的方式为最小原则提供了有力支持。接下来，证明将某些模式解释为“不可能”图形与该原则并不矛盾。最后，本文认为对最小原则的检验必然与另外两个假设混在一起，一个涉及简单性的度量，另一个涉及实验对象的任务概念。
