Mark Berman

So images of architectural scenes that don't have any nature in them

If the architecture has more curved edges, people tend to like that architecture more.

Yeah, so if we imagine a snowflake, the snowflake has a characteristic shape.

If we put that snowflake under a microscope and zoom in, you'll also see some of the same shape.

And if you zoom in some more, you also see the same shape.

So that it doesn't really matter what spatial scale you look at the snowflake,

it's got the same characteristic shape.

So we would say then that the snowflake is scale-free.

It doesn't matter what spatial scale you look at the snowflake, it's got the same characteristic shape.

Or mathematicians would say that that snowflake is more fractal.

It's got more of a fractal aspect to it.

And you can imagine the same thing with a tree.

A tree has a trunk, which then branches out into other branches.

branches that branches out into smaller branches that might branch out to even smaller branches that branches out into leaves and then there's a big vein in the leaf that might branch out into into other veins of the leaf and so it it might not matter as much at what spatial scale you look at the tree it's kind of got this same branching structure and it turns out nature is filled with this scale for your fractal stimulation

It could be that curved edges, and in particular fractalness, might be easier to process.

So in particular, if we think about the fractals again, because it's the same shape that's kind of repeating at different scales, you may not have to process or remember every single detail because it's repeated.

But I also think too, and we don't have all the answers to this, it might have to do with an aesthetic preference that people kind of like symmetry and this fractalness also has some symmetrical properties.

People tend not to like sharp edges or straight lines as much.

You can imagine some buildings that I think are some buildings that people don't enjoy very much tend to be brutalist architecture that's very rectilinear.

People tend to prefer more Gothic architecture that has more intricacy, or you could imagine a building designed by Gaudi in Barcelona that's very curvy, that's mimicking the patterns of nature.