Torstein Låg

The visual basis of category effects in object identification: evidence from the visual hemifield paradigm.

The basis for the category specific living things advantage in object recognition (i.e., faster and more accurate identification of living compared to nonliving things) was investigated in two experiments. It was hypothesised that the global shape of living things on average provides more information about their basic level identity than the global shape of nonliving things. In two experiments subjects performed name-picture or picture-name verification tasks, in which blurred or clear images of living and nonliving things were presented in either the right or the left visual hemifield. With blurred images, recognition performance was worst for nonliving things presented to the right visual field/left hemisphere, indicating that the lack of visual detail in the stimulus combined with a left hemisphere bias toward processing high frequency visual elements proved detrimental for processing nonliving stimuli in this condition. In addition, an overall living things advantage was observed in both experiments. This advantage was considerably larger with blurred images than with clear. These results are compatible with the global shape hypothesis and converge with evidence using other paradigms.

Illusions of Category Specificity

number of methodological concerns in the study of category-specific deficits. Although these concerns do not constitute a refutation of category specificity, I think they may prove serious enough that perhaps a rephrasing of current research questions would be beneficial to the field. There are in particular two aspects of Laws’ argument that leads me to entertain this conclusion. First, Laws points out that the assumption that living things are in general more difficult to identify than nonliving things is probably false. Despite earlier findings of a category specific disadvantage for living things (e.g. Humphreys et al., 1988; Gaffan and Heywood, 1993), a number of better controlled studies conducted by his own group have clearly indicated that individuals with intact brains are in fact better at identifying living things compared to nonliving (e.g. Laws, 2000; Laws and Neve, 1999). To this one might add that the finding generalises to experimental tasks other than naming, such as object decisions (Gerlach, 2001) and picture-name verification (Låg, 2005). Interestingly, the latter two studies also indicate that rather small changes in tasks or task conditions can cause striking differences in normal subjects’ relative recognition performance on living and nonliving categories. Moreover, that two different studies investigating the same patient finds very different results (Laws et al., 1997; Moss et al., 1997) indicates that this may indeed pose a serious problem for interpreting patient data. Second, Laws argues that evidence on patients’ naming or identification on living and nonliving things, as currently reported in the literature, does not constitute proper double dissociations. In fact, because patients are compared across different studies, and thus have been tested using different tasks and/or stimuli, many of the purported dissociations do not even qualify as complementary dissociations (Shallice, 1988). This doubtful stance might indeed be appropriate given the recent findings with normals indicating instability of category effects resulting from variations in stimulus control or other aspects of the tasks, and that identical stimuli and tasks have rarely been used in double dissociations of living and nonliving identification. The remedies proposed by Laws for this state of affairs is to accept a dissociation of living and nonliving things only if the same well controlled stimuli and the same tasks have been used on both the patient and a matched control sample that does not perform at ceiling, and if the discrepancy between performance scores on the two categories is significantly larger in the patient than in the control sample. A complementary dissociation would be shown if the converse category dissociation could be demonstrated in a patient still using a control sample and the same materials and tasks. Demonstrating a complementary dissociation in this manner would significantly strengthen the case for the empirical reality of category specific deficits. However, I do have one concern with the strictness of this approach. Again, given what we know of about the instability of category dissociations as a consequence of variations in stimuli and task conditions, finding a task and a set of stimuli that would allow such a demonstration could turn out to be near impossible. And even if one were to find the right task and materials, then where would we stand? If the search for the right stimuli and tasks has proven difficult, then a dissociation demonstrated in this manner might be hard to generalise. It would be a phenomenon tied to a particular set of stimuli and task conditions, and thus perhaps not very convincing as a double dissociation of the object categories as such. These problems may point us in a slightly different direction, and force us to look at different aspects of category specific phenomena. If, as it may seem, it is the case that different stimuli and different tasks elicit different patterns of category specificity, then perhaps asking the question of what it is about the living category that makes it different from the non living, and vice versa, is not the most fruitful approach. Instead, looking for what it is about the stimuli and tasks in a particular experiment that elicits this or that pattern of performance may yield clearer answers. There are several things that indicate this might be a fruitful approach. First, a similar way of thinking has proved highly productive in the study of face recognition. A series of findings indicate that identification of homogeneous object categories recruits the same, previously presumed face specific

The northernmost Cognitive Science Laboratory

The University of Tromsø is situated in the town of Tromsø in Norway (69.4 N) and it is the world’s northernmost university. Hence, the Cognitive Science Laboratory of the Department of Psychology at the University of Tromsø is also the world’s northernmost laboratory of its kind. The University of Tromsø is the fourth and most recent university to be established in Norway. The department of Psychology is also relatively ‘‘young’’ (being established in 1983) and a rather international group of researchers and teachers have formed or currently form our departmental staff. Collectively, our academic backgrounds originate from various universities in Norway as well as from Belgium, Britain, Canada, Chile, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the USA. Among the various parallel projects that are currently run in the cognitive science laboratory, some do take advantage of the geographical location of the university by dealing with the effect of ‘‘extreme’’ latitudes and unusual seasonal patterns of daylight on cognitive and perceptual processing (e.g., Brennen et al. 1999; Brennen 2001). However, our interests, taken collectively, span a rather wide range of topics revolving around key questions in cognitive science, like attention (and its disorders: spatial neglect, ADHD), memory, visual imagery, perception of objects and faces, comprehension and learning, and the organization of knowledge. Moreover, a range of methods are currently used to address the above themes, e.g., studies of brain-damaged patients, eye-tracking, computational modeling, human operant conditioning, and classic cognitive/behavioral methods. The cerebral basis of spatial vision

Teaching It All

With a student-centered perspective, this chapter gives advice on how teachers, fresh or experienced, can undertake IL teaching development, or refinement of existing methods and material. Using research and our own teaching experience as empirical basis, we suggest pedagogical methods which have proven successful in IL teaching. Divided into three parts, preparation, implementation, and assessment and evaluation, this chapter consists of a combination of general practical advice, example situations, possible exercises and activities, and tips on how to optimize use of technology in the teaching situation.

The Importance of Being Information Literate

This opening chapter serves as an introduction to the topic of information literacy (IL) and the role of IL in both academia and in society in general. We delineate our purpose with the book, which is to broaden our concept of what IL is and why including learning strategies and academic formation in the IL definition can increase student learning. The chapter furthermore briefly looks at challenges connected to dropout rates in higher education and how IL teaching can ease the transition from secondary to tertiary education. Even though the book primarily focuses on IL in an academic setting, we also believe that IL plays a major role in lifelong learning and that IL skills are necessary in almost any line of work. The chapter ends with a short summary of the succeeding chapters.

Things We Know About How Learning Happens

This chapter provides a selective review of some of the research that has helped us understand how learning happens. We will briefly describe the human cognitive architecture, looking at how both its strengths and limitations affect our ability to learn. We also consider approaches to learning and teaching, motivational aspects of learning, and some of the research on what actually seems to work best in teaching and learning. We believe that as IL teachers, we all benefit from continually working to develop our conceptions of teaching and learning, using the best available evidence from educational research and the learning sciences to do so.

Information Literacy: The What and How

This chapter presents the 21st century version of the concept of information literacy (IL). It reviews current practices in IL teaching and takes a quick look at present-day challenges. The chapter further highlights elements we consider missing from teaching practices, and thereby forms a bridge to the remainder of the book, where we address those missing elements.

Toward Academic Integrity and Critical Thinking

This chapter connects to the normative basis of information literacy, and the values and attitudes of academic production of new knowledge. It starts with an introduction to the phenomenon of “Academic Bildung,” understood as independence and personal engagement, in other words the process of adopting and being integrated into academic ways of thinking and learning. This process is also desired to be a process towards academic integrity and critical thinking. Academic integrity can be described as the moral code of academia, and this chapter argues that it has its source in research integrity. Critical thinking is the activity of seeking out valid and justified reasons, and it is a set of skills as well as an educational ideal. Academic integrity and critical thinking, as parts of Academic Bildung, are vital for truly being information literate in higher education. This chapter finally explains how motivation theory in the form of Self-Determination Theory (SDT) can be seen as an empirical and descriptive counterpart of the normative education-philosophical theory of Academic Bildung.

Chapter Four – Learning Strategies

Building on our conception of information literacy and our understanding of learning and teaching, this chapter looks at research on learning strategies. If we accept that learning and information literacy are inextricably entwined, then deepening our understanding of effective and not so effective strategies for learning should allow us to better help our students become life-long, information literate learners. In this chapter, we also attempt to point out the inherent affinity between effective (deep) learning strategies, and the thoughts and actions of an information literate knowledge seeker.