@article{ref1,
title="When complex is easy on the mind: internal repetition of visual information in complex objects is a source of perceptual fluency",
journal="Journal of experimental psychology: human perception and performance",
year="2015",
author="Joye, Yannick and Steg, Linda and Unal, Ayça Berfu and Pals, Roos",
volume="42",
number="1",
pages="103-114",
abstract="Across 3 studies, we investigated whether visual complexity deriving from internally repeating visual information over many scale levels is a source of perceptual fluency. Such continuous repetition of visual information is formalized in fractal geometry and is a key-property of natural structures. In the first 2 studies, we exposed participants to 3-dimensional high-fractal versus low-fractal stimuli, respectively characterized by a relatively high versus low degree of internal repetition of visual information. Participants evaluated high-fractal stimuli as more complex and fascinating than their low-fractal counterparts. We assessed ease of processing by asking participants to solve effortful puzzles during and after exposure to high-fractal versus low-fractal stimuli. Across both studies, we found that puzzles presented during and after seeing high-fractal stimuli were perceived as the easiest ones to solve and were solved more accurately and faster than puzzles associated with the low-fractal stimuli. In Study 3, we ran the Dot Probe Procedure to rule out that the findings from Study 1 and Study 2 reflected differences in attentional bias between the high-fractal and low-fractal stimuli, rather than perceptual fluency. Overall, our findings confirm that complexity deriving from internal repetition of visual information can be easy on the mind. (PsycINFO Database Record<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0096-1523",
doi="10.1037/xhp0000105",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000105"
}