The structures of letters and symbols throughout human history are selected to match those found in objects in natural scenes
The structures of letters and symbols throughout human history are selected to match those found in objects in natural scenes
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DOI：
10.1086/502806
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发表时间：
2006-05-01
影响因子：
2.9
通讯作者：
Shimojo, S
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Changizi, MA;Zhang, Q;Shimojo, S
在字母和其他人类视觉符号的形状中是否存在经验上的差异？如果存在，这些差异背后的选择压力是什么？为了检验这一点，我们确定了各种各样的拓扑结构不同的轮廓配置，并检查了这些配置类型的相对频率跨越书写系统，中文写作，和非语言符号。我们的第一个结果是，这三类人类视觉符号在其配置分布中具有相似的签名，这表明人类视觉符号的形状存在潜在的原则。第二，我们提供的证据表明，视觉符号的形状被选择为容易看到的运动系统的代价。最后，我们提供的证据来支持一个生态假说，视觉符号已被文化选择，以匹配在自然场景中发现的各种聚集的轮廓，因为这是我们已经进化到善于视觉处理。
Are there empirical regularities in the shapes of letters and other human visual signs, and if so, what are the selection pressures underlying these regularities? To examine this, we determined a wide variety of topologically distinct contour configurations and examined the relative frequency of these configuration types across writing systems, Chinese writing, and nonlinguistic symbols. Our first result is that these three classes of human visual sign possess a similar signature in their configuration distribution, suggesting that there are underlying principles governing the shapes of human visual signs. Second, we provide evidence that the shapes of visual signs are selected to be easily seen at the expense of the motor system. Finally, we provide evidence to support an ecological hypothesis that visual signs have been culturally selected to match the kinds of conglomeration of contours found in natural scenes because that is what we have evolved to be good at visually processing.