Chapter 11: Visual Knowledge; By: Jenny Tran
Introspection
study of mental imagery, participants report their own mental contents
Poor research
Subjective
translating subjective into verbal report, no guarantee everyone will translate the same way
same imagery skill but varied in describing their experience
Chronometric studies
"Time Measuring"
examine how fast people make judgements
write a paragraph describing cat
draw a picture of a cat
head is prominent
whiskers and claw prominent
what information is included and prominent depends on mode of presentation
Image Scanning studies
participants asked to memorize fictional map, imagine black speck moving from landmark to another
double scanning distance for double the distance, same results when asked to zoom in/out
travel in image world resembles travel in actual world
mental rotation tasks
showed 2 different shapes from 1 different perspective
amount of imagined rotation depends on how much rotation is needed
imagined movements resemble actual movements
people have no trouble rotating with depth
Unilateral Neglect Syndrome
shown picture, only see the right side of it
asked to read a word, only reads right half of it
asked to visualize a plaza in the cite and list buildings in view
can only right side
Imagery
Visual Imagery
relies on brain areas need for vision
Spatial
relies on different areas of brain
Patient L.H
brain damage, difficult in tasks requiring judgments about visual appearance
performed well on mental rotation tasks
Individual Differences
depends on individual ability level
one could be a good visualizer but poor spatializer
people with vivid imagery report images as picture like
there is a relationship between image vividness and how well they perform on tasks that require visual image
Eidetic Memory
aka photographic memory
very rare
most people who claim they do -> in reality they do not; they just use memory strategies like mnemonics
Dual Coding
imagined materials will be double represented in memory (word and picture)
access to symbolic memory easier if cue is a word
access to image-based easier with a picture
Primacy and recency, encoding specificity, schemata, spreading activation, familiarity
Memory Errors in Long Term Memory
Schemata retrieval
rarely noticed changes that fit into schema
noticed changes in items not in schema, more likely to recall
Boundary Extension
people include more details
ex: picture with fence
people extend the fence to show its pointy (in reality its round)