Structural information theory SIT Leeuwenberg van der Helm

Jun 29, 2011 09:08 PM  SIT grew out of Gestalt .... it is an extension of Gestalt Psychology.

SIT initiated in 1960s by Emanuel Leeuwenberg

developed further by Peter van der Helm  (PhD supervisor was Leeuwenberg.

Most prominently, he advocated the simplicity principle

which states that, from among all possible interpretations of a pattern, the visual system

selects the interpretation with the simplest description.

SIT has been argued to be the best defined and most successful extension of <a title="Gestalt psychology" href="/wiki/Gestalt_psychology">Gestalt ideas</a>.<a href="#cite_note-3">[4]</a>

It is the only Gestalt approach providing a <a title="Calculus" href="/wiki/Calculus">formal calculus</a> that generates plausible <a class="mw-redirect" title="Percept" href="/wiki/Percept">perceptual interpretations</a>.

SIT :  the perceptually preferred interp. is the one with the SIMPLEST CODE.

simplest code = minimum info load, ie  a code that enables reconstruction using a

minimum # of descriptive parameters  (note relation to AIT below  (Marcus Hutter et al))

Such a code is obtained by capturing a maximum amount of visual regularity and

yields a hierarchical organization of the stimulus in terms of wholes and parts.

The assumption that the visual system prefers simplest interpretations is called the simplicity principle.<a href="#cite_note-4">[5]</a>

Historically, the simplicity principle is an information-theoretical descendant of the Gestalt law of Prägnanz,<a href="#cite_note-5">[6]</a>

which was based on the natural tendency of physical systems to settle into stable minimum-energy states.

Furthermore, just as the later-proposed

<a title="Minimum description length" href="/wiki/Minimum_description_length">minimum description length principle</a> in <a title="Algorithmic information theory" href="/wiki/Algorithmic_information_theory">algorithmic information theory</a> (AIT),

it can be seen as a formalization of <a class="mw-redirect" title="Occam's Razor" href="/wiki/Occam%27s_Razor">Occam's Razor</a> in which the best hypothesis for a given set of data is the one that leads to the largest compression of the data.

Structural vs Algorithmic Information Theory...

SIT encodes for a restricted set of perceptually relevant kinds of regularities

in SIT, the relevant outcome of an encoding is a hierarchical organization.

Structural information theory SIT Leeuwenberg van der Helm

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