PSYCH 240 1st Edition Lecture 8Outline of Last Lecture: Visual ImageryI. Perception and ImageryII. Propositional vs. Depictivea. Depictiveb. Propsitionalc. The Imagery Debate (Kosslyn)III. Theory of Mental Imagerya. Compromise theoryOutline of Current Lecture I. Introduction to Visual Processinga. ExamplesII. Special Status of Visual Informationa. Quantity of Informationb. Extraordinary Imageryc. Picture Memoryd. Dual-code Hypothesis (Paivio)III. Cognitive Maps and Spatial Informationa. Evidence for Cognitive Mapsb. Weaknesses of Cognitive MapsCurrent Lecture: Visuospatial ProcessingI. Introduction to visual processingA. Examplesi. What shape are a German Shepard’s ears vs. Snoopy’s earsii. Which is a deeper green – Christmas tree vs. frozen peaiii. How many windows are in your living roomThese notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.iv. Did George Washington have a beard?v. Rotate uppercase “n” 90° clockwise, does that make another letter?vi. Which is further North – Seattle vs. MontrealII. Special Status of Visual InformationA. Quantity of infoi. There is a limit to the amount of information we can process at a time  Cognitive limitB. Extraordinary Imageryi. Example1. Toscanini was said to have over 250 symphonies in his memory (50 different instruments in each of these scores)2. Illustrative quote from Mareka. It was in St. Louis just before the start of the concert and the 2nd bassoonist had just arrived to the concert carrying a bassoon with a broken key. Toscanini shaded his eyes and then said, “It’s all-right, that note doesn’t occur in the piece tonight.”C. Picture memoryi. Visual memory is spatial1. Remember much more visual information than non-visual information2. Extraordinary subjects: Talmudic scholars3. Shepard (1967): 612 picturesa. People remembered almost all of the pictures immediately after, most 2 hours after, and still a significant amount weeks after4. Standing et al. a. (1970): 2,560 picturesi. The worst grad student remembered 85% of them (took 8 hours to see them all)b. (1973): 10,000 picturesi. Could remember well over 60% of the pictures even though it took days to show them all to the grad studentsc. ….. 1,000,000?i. Estimated people would be able to remember 730,000 pictures out of the milliond. We’re not going to remember nearly as many words as pictures if they showed/spoke them to us5. People are asked to draw a penny from memory and they found that most people suck at it a. They don’t remember the small details b/c they’re unimportant and didn’t pay attention to itii. When Visual Memory is poor1. For unimportant and unattended details2. When stimuli lack meaning3. When foils (distractors) are similar to targetiii. Good Recognition Involves: 1. Attention to details2. Meaningfulness and relevancy of details3. Distinctive alternativesiv. Richer Code 1. The hypothesis that visual memory is richer/deeper is false2. Experimenta. Memory for photos vs. memory for line drawings: memories are about the sameb. Memory for line drawings vs memories embellished line drawings vs. photos: remembered equally well3. Resultsa. All 3 better than memory for verbal descriptionD. Dual Code Hypothesis (Paivio)i. Hypothesis = Remember concrete words better than abstract wordsii. Experiment1. Concrete words: apple, car, elephant, churcha. Can be coded both verbally and non-verbally2. Abstract words: deed, virtue, thought, peacea. Can be coded verbally but not non-verballyiii. Results1. Concrete words are remembered better2. Nonverbal/visual code: image of desk3. Verbal code: deskiv. Why is memory bad for unattended details?1. Don’t create verbal code for unattended featuresv. Why is memory bad when foils are similar?1. Visual code doesn’t help b/c the visual representations are too similarIII. Cognitive Maps and Spatial InformationA. Evidence for Cognitive Mapsi. Tolman (1930): rats in mazes1. Learn spatial layout of maze, not just sequence of turnsa. Take shortcuts when they canb. They form a cognitive map of their environment so that when given many different paths, they choose the path that would get them closest to the food based on where it was beforeii. Hintzman: cognitive maps in humans1. Accurate pointing to cities. Able to keep track of where things are when orientation changesa. E.g. Face: Denver. Point to: New Orleansb. People were good at this even if there is no reinforcementiii. Jonides and Baum: tested people’s ability to judge distances1. Experiment:a. Asked questions like how far is it from Angell Hall to the Bell Tower?2. Results:a. People have very accurate estimates about the distance of landmarks in their cognitive minds B. Weaknesses of Cognitive Mapsi. We use heuristics1. Heuristics: rule of thumb; easy to do but doesn’t necessarily lead to the correct answera. Heuristics often help us remember thingsb. Sometimes they impede our memory2. Distortions of shape/position and distancea. Symmetryi. We assume that things are relatively symmetric but sometimes (the shape of the river on the map) they’re notb. Right-Angle Biasi. We impose right angles when they’re not there1. Rectilinearizationc. Rotation Heuristici. We rotate boundaries to be more vertical or horizontal than they actually are1. Which is further east: Reno or San Diego?a. San Diego but everyone says Reno b/c Nevada is farther east than Californiad. Alignment Heuristici. We tend to align things even though in real life, they’re not aligned1. Which is further east: Florida or Chile?a. Chile is east of Florida2. Which is further north: Philadelphia or Rome?a. Rome is significantly more North than Phillye. Relative-position heuristici. Seattle is part of the U.S. and Montreal is part of Canada. Well, the U.S. is south of Canada so it would make sense that all of the cities in the U.S. are south of Canadian cities1. Which is further north: Seattle or Montreal?a. Almost exactly the same (Seattle slightly more north)f. Subjective Clustersi. Our representation of space can get screwed up by what we know of things (our semantic knowledge)ii. Conceptual knowledge (semantic memory) affects imagined representation of distances between things1. Similar things judged to be closer than they are2. The Public Library and Ulrich’s – people give lower distances between the two places b/c they are semantically linked