The broad interest is primarily the result of what he has published in books, art and literary magazines, and academic journals.
The patterns were created unintentionally as a result of the natural evolution of linguistic signs, so it is possible they may reflect aspects of awareness associated with our innate ability to conceptualize meaning.
[7] The appearance of word-related meaning in the signs of language challenges the idea that they are arbitrary, a belief that is at the foundation of linguistics, post-structuralist philosophy (Husserl, Barthes, Baudrillard, Derrida) and cultural theory—this belief rests entirely on an assumption made a century ago that isn't supported by recent research into how linguistic signs are perceived and processed.
[8] Nevertheless, acceptance that our linguistic ancestors intuitively structured the signs in relation to the meaning of the words requires acknowledgement of an innate level of attunement that is unprecedented (despite the fact that many of our most celebrated abstract artists (abstract expressionists) have based their work on the firm belief that innate or intuitive behavior is capable of constructing genuine expressions of human awareness).
An in-depth discussion of the patterning and its implications is presented in a chapter of Winkler's memoir accessible on Philpapers.