Processing Bias: Extending Sensory Drive to Include Efficacy and Efficiency in Information Processing
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2019-01-03
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Abstract
Communication signals often comprise an array of colors, lines, spots, notes or odors that are
arranged in complex patterns, melodies or blends. Receiver perception is assumed to influence
preference and thus the evolution of signal design, but evolutionary biologists still struggle to
understand how perception, preference, and signal design are mechanistically linked. In parallel,
the field of empirical aesthetics aims to understand why people like some designs more than
others. The model of processing bias discussed here is rooted in empirical aesthetics, which
posits that preferences are influenced by the emotional system as it monitors the dynamics of
information processing, and that attractive signals have either effective designs that maximize
information transmission, efficient designs that allow information processing at low metabolic
cost, or both. We refer to the causal link between preference and the emotionally rewarding experience
of effective and efficient information processing as the processing bias, and we apply it
to the evolutionary model of sensory drive. A sensory drive model that incorporates processing
bias hypothesizes a causal chain of relationships between the environment, perception, pleasure,
preference, and ultimately the evolution of signal design, from simple to complex.