Reviews
'Leeuwenberg and van der Helm have assembled the definitive statement on their influential theory of the coding of visual forms. SIT is the most thorough system available for capturing the essence of a structure's simplicity, so this volume will be required reading for those interested in this far-reaching and quintessentially Gestalt concept.' James Pomerantz, Rice University, "Leeuwenberg and van der Helm have assembled the definitive statement on their influential theory of the coding of visual forms. SIT is the most thorough system available for capturing the essence of a structure's simplicity, so this volume will be required reading for those interested in this far-reaching and quintessentially Gestalt concept." --James Pomerantz, Rice University, "Whether you are familiar with Structural Information Theory or not, you will enjoy this systematic presentation by Emanuel Leeuwenberg, its original proponent, and Peter van der Helm, its main formal developer. Through twelve chapters, including a coding manual, they distill order out of perception and cognition, like the demons invoked in the introduction. SIT provides a powerful language for evaluating how strongly the mind strives for simplicity; the book provides an optimal context for evaluating the strength of SIT." --Walter Gerbino, University of Trieste, 'Whether you are familiar with Structural Information Theory or not, you will enjoy this systematic presentation by Emanuel Leeuwenberg, its original proponent, and Peter van der Helm, its main formal developer. Through twelve chapters, including a coding manual, they distil order out of perception and cognition, like the demons invoked in the introduction. SIT provides a powerful language for evaluating how strongly the mind strives for simplicity; the book provides an optimal context for evaluating the strength of SIT.' Walter Gerbino, University of Trieste, Advance praise: 'Whether you are familiar with Structural Information Theory or not, you will enjoy this systematic presentation by Emanuel Leeuwenberg, its original proponent, and Peter van der Helm, its main formal developer. Through twelve chapters, including a coding manual, they distil order out of perception and cognition, like the demons invoked in the introduction. SIT provides a powerful language for evaluating how strongly the mind strives for simplicity; the book provides an optimal context for evaluating the strength of SIT.' Walter Gerbino, University of Trieste
Synopsis
Structural information theory is a coherent theory about the way the human visual system organises a raw visual stimulus into objects and object parts. To humans, a visual stimulus usually has one clear interpretation even though, in theory, any stimulus can be interpreted in numerous ways. To explain this, the theory focuses on the nature of perceptual interpretations rather than on underlying process mechanisms and adopts the simplicity principle which promotes efficiency of internal resources rather than the likelihood principle which promotes veridicality in the external world. This theoretically underpinned starting point gives rise to quantitative models and verifiable predictions for many visual phenomena, including amodal completion, subjective contours, transparency, brightness contrast, brightness assimilation and neon illusions. It also explains phenomena such as induced temporal order, temporal context effects and hierarchical dominance effects, and extends to evaluative pattern qualities such as distinctiveness, interestingness and beauty., This highly accessible and richly illustrated book on visual pattern classification is unique in that it presents not only many visual phenomena but also a coherent and comprehensive theory with quantitative models, verifiable predictions and extensive empirical evidence. It will appeal to both academic specialists and other students of perception.
