Psychology

摘要

Using a 2×2×2×2 Mixed Model design, our lab has recently completed a rather large project studying imagery and scene perception, yielding 35 significant effects. Subjects read one-sentence scene descriptions (normal and/or bizarre), were told to form mental images of each scene, rate the strangeness of the scene, and later performed free recall of the scenes. The scenes varied in complexity with interim levels being best recalled, and the agents of complex scenes being best recalled. Based upon these findings were are presently engaged in creating pictures of scenes to study how seeing the scenes (perception) differs from imagining them. There are considerable challenges in doing so, however. When forming an image you already know what the components are because you created them. When looking at a picture you must attribute meaning to the components you see. A teacher, for example, is easy enough to recognize in a classroom, but in an airport? We are presently searching for characters (agents) that can be identified independent of their scenes. Also, we need to determine the extent to which these characters need props to be recognized, and the extent to which those props would transfer across scenes.