The Anatomical Collection at the University of Jena: Reinventing an exhibition of human remains based on ethical considerations.

Emphasizing scientific and cultural-historical aspects of human remains, we describe the historical background and present status of the Anatomical Collection at the University of Jena. In addition to safekeeping issues and exhibition practice, we provide typical examples of provenance research in the Collection and refer to relevant literature and recommendations. A reappraisal of the Anatomical Collection culminated in the implementation of a new exhibition concept that diverts attention away from dead bodies as mere anatomical objects and emphasizes ethical considerations, such as consented body donation.

Statistical image properties and aesthetic judgments on abstract paintings by Robert Pepperell.

In this exploratory study, we asked whether objective statistical image properties can predict subjective aesthetic ratings for a set of 48 abstract paintings created by the artist Robert Pepperell. Ruta and colleagues (2021) used the artworks previously to study the effect of curved/angular contour on liking and wanting decisions. We related a predefined set of statistical image properties to the eight different dimensions of aesthetic judgments from their study.

Comparative Analysis of Preference in Contemporary and Earlier Texts Using Entropy Measures.

Research in computational textual aesthetics has shown that there are textual correlates of preference in prose texts. The present study investigates whether textual correlates of preference vary across different time periods (contemporary texts versus texts from the 19th and early 20th centuries). Preference is operationalized in different ways for the two periods, in terms of canonization for the earlier texts, and through sales figures for the contemporary texts.

Statistical image properties predict aesthetic ratings in abstract paintings created by neural style transfer.

Artificial intelligence has emerged as a powerful computational tool to create artworks. One application is Neural Style Transfer, which allows to transfer the style of one image, such as a painting, onto the content of another image, such as a photograph. In the present study, we ask how Neural Style Transfer affects objective image properties and how beholders perceive the novel (style-transferred) stimuli.

Integration of ultrasonography training into undergraduate medical education: catch up with professional needs.

Objective: Ultrasonography (US) has become the first-line imaging modality even for physicians who are not imaging specialists. The progress has not yet been sufficiently considered in medical education. The aim was to develop a curriculum that integrates US as a compulsory part into medical education directly from the start, to build up professional competencies toward residency.

Approximate Entropy in Canonical and Non-Canonical Fiction.

Computational textual aesthetics aims at studying observable differences between aesthetic categories of text. We use Approximate Entropy to measure the (un)predictability in two aesthetic text categories, i.e.

Liking of art and the perception of color.

Color has been a defining feature of paintings throughout art history. Despite the great diversity in the use of color between epochs, there are some surprisingly stable and unifying features in chromatic properties across visual artworks. For example, artists' palettes seem to be biased toward the yellow-red range of the spectrum.

Fractality and Variability in Canonical and Non-Canonical English Fiction and in Non-Fictional Texts.

This study investigates global properties of three categories of English text: canonical fiction, non-canonical fiction, and non-fictional texts. The central hypothesis of the study is that there are systematic differences with respect to structural design features between canonical and non-canonical fiction, and between fictional and non-fictional texts. To investigate these differences, we compiled a corpus containing texts of the three categories of interest, the Jena Corpus of Expository and Fictional Prose (JEFP Corpus).

Aesthetic Perception of Line Patterns: Effect of Edge-Orientation Entropy and Curvilinear Shape.

Curvilinearity is a perceptual feature that robustly predicts preference ratings for a variety of visual stimuli. The predictive effect of curved/angular shape overlaps, to a large degree, with regularities in second-order edge-orientation entropy, which captures how independent edge orientations are distributed across an image. For some complex line patterns, edge-orientation entropy is actually a better predictor for what human observers like than curved/angular shape.

The Way I Paint-How Image Composition Emerges During the Creation of Abstract Artworks.

In recent years, there has been an increasing number of studies on objective image properties in visual artworks. Little is known, however, about how these image properties emerge while artists create their artworks. In order to study this matter, I produced five colored abstract artworks by myself and recorded state images at all stages of their creation.

Global Image Properties Predict Ratings of Affective Pictures.

Affective pictures are widely used in studies of human emotions. The objects or scenes shown in affective pictures play a pivotal role in eliciting particular emotions. However, affective processing can also be mediated by low-level perceptual features, such as local brightness contrast, color or the spatial frequency profile.

An advantage for smooth compared with angular contours in the speed of processing shape.

Curvature along a contour is important for shape perception, and a special role may be played by points of maxima (extrema) along the contour. Angles are discontinuities in curvature, a special case at one extreme of the curvature continuum. We report 4 studies using abstract shapes and comparing polygons (curvature discontinuities at the vertices) and a smoothed version of polygons (no vertices).

Recommendations of the working group of the Anatomische Gesellschaft on reduction of formaldehyde exposure in anatomical curricula and institutes.

The practice of human and veterinary medicine is based on the science of anatomy and dissection courses are still irreplaceable in the teaching of anatomy. Embalming is required to preserve body donors, for which process formaldehyde (FA) is the most frequently used and well characterized biocidal substance. Since January 2016, a new occupational exposure limit (OEL) for FA of 0.

Edge-Orientation Entropy Predicts Preference for Diverse Types of Man-Made Images.

We recently found that luminance edges are more evenly distributed across orientations in large subsets of traditional artworks, i.e., artworks are characterized by a relatively high entropy of edge orientations, when compared to several categories of other (non-art) images.

Gist Perception of Image Composition in Abstract Artworks.

Most recent studies in experimental aesthetics have focused on the cognitive processing of visual artworks. In contrast, the perception of formal compositional features of artworks has been studied less extensively. Here, we investigated whether fast and automatic processing of artistic image composition can lead to a stable and consistent aesthetic evaluation when cognitive processing is minimized or absent.

Low-level image properties in facial expressions.

We studied low-level image properties of face photographs and analyzed whether they change with different emotional expressions displayed by an individual. Differences in image properties were measured in three databases that depicted a total of 167 individuals. Face images were used either in their original form, cut to a standard format or superimposed with a mask.

Visual mismatch negativity indicates automatic, task-independent detection of artistic image composition in abstract artworks.

In complex abstract art, image composition (i.e., the artist's deliberate arrangement of pictorial elements) is an important aesthetic feature.

Statistical Image Properties in Works from the Prinzhorn Collection of Artists with Schizophrenia.

The Prinzhorn Collection preserves and exhibits thousands of visual artworks by patients who were diagnosed to suffer from mental disease. From this collection, we analyzed 1,256 images by 14 artists who were diagnosed with dementia praecox or schizophrenia. Six objective statistical properties that have been used previously to characterize visually aesthetic images were calculated.

Computational and Experimental Approaches to Visual Aesthetics.

Aesthetics has been the subject of long-standing debates by philosophers and psychologists alike. In psychology, it is generally agreed that aesthetic experience results from an interaction between perception, cognition, and emotion. By experimental means, this triad has been studied in the field of , which aims to gain a better understanding of how aesthetic experience relates to fundamental principles of human visual perception and brain processes.

Statistical Image Properties in Large Subsets of Traditional Art, , and Abstract Art.

Several statistical image properties have been associated with large subsets of traditional visual artworks. Here, we investigate some of these properties in three categories of art that differ in artistic claim and prestige: (1) Traditional art of different cultural origin from established museums and art collections (oil paintings and graphic art of Western provenance, Islamic book illustration and Chinese paintings), (2) from two museums that collect contemporary artworks of lesser importance (© Museum Of Bad Art [MOBA], Somerville, and Official Bad Art Museum of Art [OBAMA], Seattle), and (3) twentieth century abstract art of Western provenance from two prestigious museums (Tate Gallery and Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen). We measured the following four statistical image properties: the fractal dimension (a measure relating to subjective complexity); self-similarity (a measure of how much the sections of an image resemble the image as a whole), 1st-order entropy of edge orientations (a measure of how uniformly different orientations are represented in an image); and 2nd-order entropy of edge orientations (a measure of how independent edge orientations are across an image).

Subjective Ratings of and : Correlations With Statistical Image Properties in Western Oil Paintings.

For centuries, oil paintings have been a major segment of the visual arts. The JenAesthetics data set consists of a large number of high-quality images of oil paintings of Western provenance from different art periods. With this database, we studied the relationship between objective image measures and subjective evaluations of the images, especially evaluations on (defined as artistic value) and (defined as individual liking).

When noise is beneficial for sensory encoding: Noise adaptation can improve face processing.

The presence of noise usually impairs the processing of a stimulus. Here, we studied the effects of noise on face processing and show, for the first time, that adaptation to noise patterns has beneficial effects on face perception. We used noiseless faces that were either surrounded by random noise or presented on a uniform background as stimuli.

Using CNN Features to Better Understand What Makes Visual Artworks Special.

One of the goal of computational aesthetics is to understand what is special about visual artworks. By analyzing image statistics, contemporary methods in computer vision enable researchers to identify properties that distinguish artworks from other (non-art) types of images. Such knowledge will eventually allow inferences with regard to the possible neural mechanisms that underlie aesthetic perception in the human visual system.

High entropy of edge orientations characterizes visual artworks from diverse cultural backgrounds.

We asked whether "good composition" or "visual rightness" of artworks manifest themselves in a particular arrangement of basic image features, such as oriented luminance edges. Specifically, we analysed the layout of edge orientations in images from a collection of >1600 paintings of Western provenance by comparing pairwise the orientation of each edge in an image with the orientations of all other edges in the same image. From the resulting orientation histograms, we calculated Shannon entropy and parallelism (i.

Unspecific binding of cRNA probe to plaques in two mouse models for Alzheimer's disease.

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by the pathological deposition of amyloid-β (Aβ) protein-containing plaques. Microglia and astrocytes are commonly attracted to the plaques by an unknown mechanism that may involve cell adhesion. One cell adhesion family of proteins, the cadherins, are widely expressed in the central nervous system.