Jacqueline J. Goodnow

Eye and hand: Differential memory and its effect on matching

Abstract An analysis of matching tasks in terms of memory demands has two advantages: it accounts for some variations in the difficulty of matching by eye and by hand, and it suggests an analysis of “visual” and “tactual” tasks in terms that may cut across modalities. Memory for information gathered by hand appears to be less stable than for information gathered by eye, more likely to show loss when the number of comparison objects is large. As memory demands increase, accuracy declines first on any matching that starts with inspection by hand.

RULES AND REPERTOIRES, RITUALS AND TRICKS OF THE TRADE: SOCIAL AND INFORMATIONAL ASPECTS TO COGNITIVE AND REPRESENTATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses social and informational aspects to cognitive and representational development. On any occasion, performance is a selection from a repertoire of behaviors. Age and experience can expand or constrict the repertoire, although expansion is the usual case during childhood. Age and experience also alter the sense of the right behavior for the right occasion. A good match can be difficult to achieve if it calls for an unknown rule or for juggling more rules and conditions than an individual can manage. A good match can also be difficult to achieve when some particular behaviors are given the status of rituals; they can be used indiscriminately, without regard for the particular occasion, or they can be called right and wrong in a highly restrictive way. In a Brunswickian sense, the match is made difficult in one case by a very high probability that the behavior selected can be the same for every occasion and, in the other case, by a very low probability that performance can be exactly on target.

Eye and hand: Differential sampling of form and orientation properties

Abstract The eye and the hand may sample different properties of the same stimulus, with the properties most salient to one being different from those most salient to the other. This possibility is confirmed by asking children in kindergarten and second grade to judge which of two changes to a figure, both discriminable, leave the figure least changed. Visually, a change in curvature is highly significant, but a change in orientation is not. The reverse is usually true haptically. The haptic response appears based on the way the hand and its activity offer reference points for determining a change in a focal part of the figure.

A haptic error: Skew in a symmetrical curve

Symmetrically curved edges are often felt to be skewed, i.e., the highpoint feels off center. The direction of the skew depends on the direction of the hand’s scanning movement, the highpoint being felt to be towards the right when the hand scans in a left to right direction and towards the left when scanning right to left. The result clarifies some earlier studies and raises questions about relationships between the nature of the scanning movement and the quality of judgment.

Orientations called “right-side up”: Effects of stimulus alignment

Children were shown two orientations of a figure, and asked to choose one as “right-side up.” The two orientations were either horizontally aligned (one to the side of the other) or vertically aligned (one above the other). Alignment is not important for figures that elicit a strong preference. Where preferences are not strong, choices are biased towards the upper member of a vertical pair. Results suggest that the effects of stimulus alignment on response to orientation are in part a function of the type offigure.

Effect of an “action” cue on conservation of amount

A modification of Piaget’s conservation task was found to be effective in facilitating conservation responses, with the effect depending on the grade level of Ss. The “actions” procedure, designed to underline the initial equivalence of two discontinuous quantities, facilitated judgments of conservation on the task among kindergarten children. Children at first-grade level had little room to improve on the first task but showed a significant transfer effect to a second task, a conservation task involving continuous quantitites and the usual Genevan procedure.