image complexity as beneficial?

In his book “Everything Bad is Good for You,” researcher Steven Johnson claims that complexity within a television show can have a positive effect on cognitive development.  This complexity does not necessarily need to be found in the content matter of a series or show; rather, it also can simply exist in the manner in which it was filmed.  John argues that even programs such as “The Sopranos,” notwithstanding their rather dramatic and often violent subject matter, can serve as an intellectual exercise for developing minds, enabling new neural pathways to form as a means by which to understand complex cinematography and plot arcs.  He writes that “the most debased forms of mass diversion…video games and violent television dramas and juvenile sitcoms…turn out to be nutritional after all.”  (excerpted from "Watching TV Makes You Smarter," The New York Times Magazine, April 24, 2005).  In considering Johnson’s claims, which I had been exposed to in a previous class at TC entitled "The Psychology of Media," I could not help but wonder if there are those who believe similarly that exposure to a myriad of images (or even a few highly complex images) can, in fact, positively impact cognitive development.  Do M.C Escher's nonsensical woodcuts and engravings improve our ability to make sense of the world around us?  Does looking at Andreas Gursky's obsessively detailed "99 Cent Store" photograph provide us with enhanced powers of observation and reasoning?

In doing some research about this subject, I happened upon an article published in the Journal of Psychological Science in September 2009 (again, I am fascinated by this intersection between science and art which I found so compelling during our discussions following the neuroimaging lab visit).  The article discussed how researchers at UC Santa Barbara had identified a connection between exposure to surrealist themes in films, literature, and the visual arts “enhances the cognitive mechanisms that oversee implicit learning functions.”  By viewing juxtapositions of images which are fundamentally illogical, the brain responds by “finding some other structure within your environment” to compensate for that which the viewer or reader does not understand – in other words, cognitive development and compensation ensues, and image complexity here has a positive result.  An article about the study can be found here.  

While the study focused quite heavily on the medium of literature in its demonstration of the above benefits, it nonetheless piqued my interest in the potential for images to enhance cognitive development (a fact with which I am sure Johnson would be pleased)).  Having written my art history thesis on Surrealist themes, I am intrigued by the notion that the seemingly strange juxtapositions of images created by such artists as Giorgio de Chirico, René Magritte, and Yves Tanguy (among others) bear the potential to actually improve the viewer's ability to make sense of the world.