Naturalness

About: Naturalness is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1305 publications have been published within this topic receiving 31737 citations.

The Perceptual Nature of Mental Models

Abstract: In the first comprehensive formulation of the theory of mental models, Johnson-Laird proposes several constraints on any psychological theory of reasoning. He argues that his theory fulfills these constraints due to two properties of mental models: structure preservation and naturalness. However, during the elaboration of his theory over the last decades, especially the central property of naturalness was not paid much attention to. It hence has to be questioned if the theory in its present form still possesses the explanatory power originally claimed. In this chapter, I will outline an interpretation of structure preservation and naturalness within a philosophical framework. This leads to the claim that mental models are structures partially isomorphic to what they represent and that they contain exclusively perceptual relations. I will close with some proposals for refining the theory of mental models, such that the originally proposed constraints can be met (again). Only this refined version can stand as a true alternative to theories of mental logics.

Initial Conditions for Theory of Everything

Abstract: Can we guess the initial conditions for the Theory of Everything (ToE)? We understand such initial conditions as a set of all parameters, initial symmetries, and initial equations. Initial symmetries and initial equations can point possible phase transitions which can lead to additional symmetries and additional equations called here the additional conditions. Such additional conditions result from initial conditions so they do not decrease consistency of theory. On the other hand, appearing anomalies in a theory that cannot be explained within initial and additional conditions, always lead to new/free parameters. Free parameters need ad hoc hypotheses (i.e. some corrections that do not result from initial and additional conditions) which always weaken the theories. Elimination of ad-hoc/free parameters by increasing number of initial conditions causes Occam’s razor to be a determinant of the consistency of theories describing the same phenomena. The Occam’s razor is defined as follows: “Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected” [1]. It means that consistency of a theory can be defined as the inverse of the number which is the sum of all parameters, initial symmetries and initial equations (the sum of elements of the three different groups of initial conditions). New symmetries and new equations, which in a natural way appear on higher levels of ToE (the Standard Model (SM) and General Relativity (GR) are the higher levels of ToE), if we know the lowest levels of ToE, do not decrease the consistency of the theory. Authors of theories add the ad hoc hypotheses to prevent them from being falsified. Such non-scientific method causes that theories become more and more complex so their consistency is lower and lower. In physics, naturalness means that the dimensionless ratios between parameters take values of order 1. Parameters varying by many orders of magnitude need so called fine-tuning symmetries. It suggests that fine-tuned theories should be more complex i.e. their consistency should be lower. But Nature shows that it is the vice versa. It leads to conclusion that fine-tuned theories are closer to ToE. Here we guessed the initial conditions for ToE, we explained why consistency of presented here ToE is highest and why it is the fine-tuned theory. The consistency factor of presented here ToE is 1/(7+5+4)=0.0625 and it is the highest possible value for ToE-like theories. Consistency factor of SM is much lower so it is the incomplete theory sometimes leading to incorrect results.

Objective evaluation of naturalness, contrast, and colorfulness of tone-mapped images

Abstract: The main obstacle preventing High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging from becoming standard in image and video processing industry is the challenge of displaying the content. The prices of HDR screens are still too high for ordinary customers. During last decade, a lot of effort has been dedicated to finding ways to compress the dynamic range for legacy displays with simultaneous preservation of details in highlights and shadows which cannot be achieved by standard systems. These dynamic range compression techniques are called tone-mapping operators (TMO) and introduce novel distortions such as spatially non-linear distortion of contrast or naturalness corruption. This paper provides an analysis of objective no-reference naturalness, contrast and colorfulness measures in the context of tone-mapped images evaluation. Reliable measures of these features could be further merged together into single overall quality metric. The main goal of the paper is to provide an initial study of the problem and identify the potential candidates for such a combination.