There are those who believe that mathematics is a strict science, wrapped in a cloak of mystery and complex equations and veiled in jargon that has little to do with the world we inhabit on a daily basis. Richard Taylor, a University associate professor of physics, has found that fractals, patterns constructed from endless smaller copies of the same recurring pattern much like the individual water crystals contribute to the overall form of a visible snowflake, can have an impact on everything from human stress levels to the appreciation of art.
Taylor, who also works in the art and psychology department, was the first to notice the use of fractals in Jackson Pollack’s “drip-and-splash” paintings. The study, which has garnered national media attention, is a marriage between university physics, psychology and art departments, Taylor said.
In his initial work with stress-reduction, done in collaboration with NASA to minimize stress for astronauts, Taylor wired test subjects’ fingertips in a method similarly used in lie detectors. He then measured stress levels through “stress-inducing cognitive tasks,” like solving math problems.
Taylor found the fractals could lower stress by as much as 50 percent. “We deliberately stress someone out,” Taylor said. “When you do something stressful, skin conductance goes up.”
After the stressful session, the subject is given a break to lower stress back to a normal level. Taylor then places a fractal background before the next session begins and tries to stress subjects out once again.
“With a fractal pattern in the background, stress goes down as much as 50 percent,” said Taylor. “We’re looking at mundane environments like a basement, exam room or dentist’s office where human stress can be lowered naturally.”
In addition to creating patterns that can lower human stress levels, the results of the study provide better solutions for organizing information so the eye can spot a particular item in complex environments, citing possible improvements in efficiency and safety with interfaces like airplane cockpits or computer desktops, Taylor said.
Taylor also conducted a study in which 250 people looked at two black-and-white fractal patterns placed next to one another and the participants chose which pattern they preferred.
From that, Taylor said he “knows what people like and don’t like” and the challenge is to include these favored patterns into environments but also have them “time evolve” so humans are not bored by the same fractal patterns over time.
Taylor said it was only a matter of time before he took his knowledge and put it toward another area of study — Jackson Pollack. Taylor discovered fractals throughout Pollack’s paintings by creating a computer program that looks through five million fractal patterns and matches any that are evident in a painting.
Taylor said what impresses him is that the human eye can detect these subtle patterns in seconds. He added that he is impressed by Pollack’s “intuition” toward the calming effects of fractals, which were unknown until 20 years after Pollack’s death, but Taylor said Pollack “knew the general essence of what he created.”
“We looked at film footage of Pollack that showed a systematic process, and it took 10 years for him to develop it so there’s no doubt (he understood the concept),” he said.
Pollack dripped paint onto canvasses laid out on the floor.
Taylor also said that Pollack’s physiology and posture while creating paintings — often off-balance — contributed to motions that, when mapped, reveal fractal patterns.
University research assistant Cooper Boydston has focused in on this aspect of the fractal puzzle — studying fractal patterns in motion through his work with Taylor.
Boydston uses six video cameras and a pressure plate, which measures the center of balance of the person standing on it. The cameras are equipped with infrared that reflects off sensors, ball-shaped reflective surfaces attached to Boydston’s joints. The cameras pick up the movement of the sensors, and Boydston uses the data to plot his movements onto 2D and 3D graphs to see if fractal patterns appear.
The movements also give clues to how Pollack used motion to splash patterns of paint on his canvas. While Boydston can see the human motion graphed in 3D, the paint that drops is mapped through the 2D scale, with obvious variations from paint splashes taken into account, but still giving indications of the physical movement Pollack used to create certain patterns in his paintings.
“Repetitive motions and cyclical actions are very fractal,” Boydston said. “Breathing, the way our heart beats, are both examples of basic fractals present in humans.”
Boydston also referred to the Golden Ratio as proof that fractals inherent in nature. Using his hand as an example, he explained how each segment of the knuckle is halved until you reach the fingertip, which is the basic fractal pattern. Such prevalence of fractals in human physiology convinces Boydston that Pollack was aware of, and utilized, fractal methodology — called successive approximation — to fill his paintings with greater detail.
Boydston noted that how Pollack used fractal motion in his paintings is a massive question for him and Taylor.
“(Pollack) would make the skeletal structure of his paintings and then take months to fill it in,” Boydston said .
Though much of the work right now is preliminary, Boydston said, he and Taylor have already found many fractal patterns in Pollack’s work. Taylor also received national attention in a USA Today article.
But Taylor acknowledged that he has not identified fractal patterns in many of the Pollack paintings he has run through his program, and several Pollack paintings are still undiscovered. This is due in part to how Pollack sold his art; on at least one occasion Pollack traded a painting for groceries when he was young and still struggling as an artist, according to USA Today.

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