An scholarly article in a leading economics journal recently considered “the problem of a restaurateur who has to decide whether to provide customers with a written menu, a picture-based menu, or a desert tray.” Scientific experiments provide relevant evidence.  Laboratory tests indicate that a picture of an item does not prompt a higher valuation for [...]

Multisensory processing in primates, like information processing on the Internet, is extensively decentralized. A recent neuroscience review article declared: The pervasiveness of multisensory influences on all levels of cortical processing compels us to reconsider thinking about neural processing in unisensory terms. Indeed, the multisensory nature of most, possibly all, of the neocortex forces us to [...]

Experimental studies indicate that persons rate images that they process more fluently as more aesthetically pleasing: We propose that aesthetic pleasure is a function of the perceiver’s processing dynamics: The more fluently perceivers can process an object, the more positive their aesthetic response. We review variables known to influence aesthetic judgments, such as figural goodness, [...]