underlying-infotropism.pdf (210.61 kB)
Infotropism as the underlying principle of perceptual organization
Whether perceptual organization favors the simplest or most likely interpretation of a distal stimulus has long been debated. An unbridgeable gulf has seemed to separate these, the Gestalt and Helmholtzian viewpoints. But in recent decades, the proposal that likelihood and simplicity are two sides of the same coin has been gaining ground, to the extent that their equivalence is now widely assumed. What then arises is a desire to know whether the two principles can be reduced to one. Applying Occam's Razor in this way is particularly desirable given that, as things stand, an account referencing one principle alone cannot be completely satisfactory. The present paper argues that unification of the two principles is possible, and that it can be achieved in terms of an incremental notion of `information seeking' (infotropism). Perceptual processing that is infotropic can be shown to target both simplicity and likelihood. The ability to see perceptual organization as governed by either objective can then be explained in terms of it being an infotropic process. Infotropism can be identified as the principle which underlies, and thus generalizes the principles of likelihood and simplicity.
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Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
Journal of Mathematical PsychologyISSN
0022-2496Publisher
ElsevierExternal DOI
Volume
61Page range
38-44Department affiliated with
- Informatics Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2015-07-07First Open Access (FOA) Date
2016-03-22First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2017-03-19Usage metrics
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