Gestalt and feature-intensive processing: Toward a unified model of human information processing |
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Authors: | Matthew J Sharps and Michael A Nunes |
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Institution: | (1) California State University, tFresno, USA |
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Abstract: | “Cognitive asynchrony theory,” recently developed in research on aging and memory, implies a functional distinction between
the processing of “feature-intensive” items, those with numerous identifiable features, and the processing of images which
are relatively sparse in such features and are handled in a more wholistic, “gestalt” manner. The present experiments addressed
the question of whether such a distinction exists outside the realms of memory in which it has thus far been addressed. The
present work used mental rotation as a model system. Consistent with the predictions of this model, Experiment 1 showed that
feature-intensive figures required significantly more time to rotate than did gestalt figures, even though angles of rotation
were the same. Experiment 2 demonstrated that feature-intensive processing may involve verbally-accessible semantic systems
to a greater degree than is the case with “gestalt” items. Experiment 3 identified significant practice effects of feature-intensive
stimuli on the processing of gestalt stimuli, but not the reverse. The results of these experiments indicate that the “gestalt/feature-intensive”
processing distinction extends to mental rotation as well as to memory. Implications for the nature of mental representation
of verbal and visual materials are discussed. |
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Keywords: | |
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