One can spend hours looking at a calm sunset or a clear night sky. These scenes are not only effortless on the eyes — they may also be easy on the brain. People tend to like visual stimuli that require little cognitive effort to process, researchers report in the December PNAS Nexus.
The brain is the most energy-guzzling organ in the body, and visual processing alone accounts for nearly half of its energy use. Researchers have long studied how the visual system conserves energy. But the new study addresses the question from a different perspective. “Not only is the visual system optimized for efficiency, but we might have aesthetic