{"title":"Mechanistic complexity is fundamental: Evidence from judgments, attention, and memory.","authors":"Tal Boger, Frank C Keil","doi":"10.1037/xge0001691","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>What makes an object <i>complex</i>? Complexity comes in many different forms. Some objects are <i>visually</i> complex but <i>mechanistically</i> simple (e.g., a hairbrush). Other objects are the opposite; they look simple but work in a complex way (e.g., an iPhone). Is one kind of complexity more fundamental to how we represent, attend to, and remember objects? Although most existing psychological research on complexity focuses on visual complexity, we argue that mechanistic complexity may be more consequential: Across five preregistered experiments (<i>N</i> = 780 adults), we show that mechanistic complexity not only predicts explicit judgments but also drives visual attention and memory. Thus, representations of object complexity-and object representations more broadly-rely on more than just external appearance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":15698,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology: General","volume":" ","pages":"596-606"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7000,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Experimental Psychology: General","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001691","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/11/21 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
What makes an object complex? Complexity comes in many different forms. Some objects are visually complex but mechanistically simple (e.g., a hairbrush). Other objects are the opposite; they look simple but work in a complex way (e.g., an iPhone). Is one kind of complexity more fundamental to how we represent, attend to, and remember objects? Although most existing psychological research on complexity focuses on visual complexity, we argue that mechanistic complexity may be more consequential: Across five preregistered experiments (N = 780 adults), we show that mechanistic complexity not only predicts explicit judgments but also drives visual attention and memory. Thus, representations of object complexity-and object representations more broadly-rely on more than just external appearance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
期刊介绍：
The Journal of Experimental Psychology: General publishes articles describing empirical work that bridges the traditional interests of two or more communities of psychology. The work may touch on issues dealt with in JEP: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, JEP: Human Perception and Performance, JEP: Animal Behavior Processes, or JEP: Applied, but may also concern issues in other subdisciplines of psychology, including social processes, developmental processes, psychopathology, neuroscience, or computational modeling. Articles in JEP: General may be longer than the usual journal publication if necessary, but shorter articles that bridge subdisciplines will also be considered.
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