Pat Cabe writes on 22 Jan 99,:
> Paul asked:
> > Of course, that does raise an interesting question. Does the
> > nonfoveated information make it into the sensory registers? Does some of
> > it? What determines exactly what part of the visual field makes it into
> > the registers?
> >
>
> I don't know any studies that ask this specific question directly, but
> since non-foveated info does indeed seem to guide saccades during reading,
> it sure seems like something must be registered, even if outside awareness
> (preattentively).
My impression of the studies using Sperling's partial report procedure
(showing rows of letters and then sounding a tone to indicate which row
to report) is that not all of the rows and columns shown are in the fovea.
But I could be wrong.
I have always thought that it was a large inferential jump from being able
to report some letters in a row to saying that the sensory register
contains a veridical picture of the visual sensation. I have wondered
why someone hasn't taken this further and put up some kind of complex
photograph for a time and then remove the picture and turn on a shape
on the screen about 250 msec after the picture goes off and see if
people can report what was contained within the shape. If this requires
too much processing for sensory memory, how about just reporting the
color of that part of the picture. I know that Phillips in 1974 reported
some work using, according to Reed (1996), "patterns made by
randomly filled cells in a square matrix" (p. 22) but Reed doesn't report
the size of the matrix. I am guessing that there were quite a few cells in
the matrix but I would like to know how many.
Maybe my complex picture experiment has been done (or has not been
done for good reason) and I am not aware of it. If so, I would like to
know what happened.
References:
Reed, S.K. (1996). Cognition: Theory and applications. Pacific Grove,
CA: Brooks-Cole.
Phillips, W.A. (1974). On the distinction between sensory storage and
short-term visual memory. Perception & Psychophysics, 16, 283-290.
Rick
Dr. Rick Froman
Psychology Department
Box 3055
John Brown University
Siloam Springs, AR 72761
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.jbu.edu/sbs/psych
Office: (501)524-7295
Fax: (501)524-9548
Thought for the day:
Intuition (n): an uncanny sixth sense which tells people
that they are right, whether they are or not.
