"Psychology Sets" for kids--why stop with Chemistry?

Remember the old Chemistry sets? They once actually came with corrosive and explosive powders that allowed many kids to discover and destroy. Now, they are a bit toned down. We were looking to get our daughter a microscope and Grandma gave her one with one of these new chemistry sets, too. Beware the wonders and danger of .... gelatin. It's a start. Some of the experiments are pretty time-consuming for a kindergartener.

One evening she was asking to do one of these "spare-a-mints" (it is hard to correct pronunciation when it is that cute) but it was too close to bedtime to complete one. Then it occurred to me that she could do a small version of a "daddy experiment" and still get to bed on time. The Psychology Set! I made a quick, cartoon version of four different instances of visual search, based on Anne Treisman's seminal work from 1980. The target was always the same, a red X. Here it is, outlined in yellow.




The only thing that changes are the nontargets, or distractors. The other two letters are the types of nontargets she saw. The first is the blue X, and the other is a red O. So her job was (and now your job is!) to find the red X. To emulate her experience keep a clock nearby and see how many seconds it takes. (If you do not find the target after awhile, you are allowed to stop looking.) Ready? Go!




Found it? Good. Now look for it again here:




OK, that was a bit tricky. No target there. Try again here:





Found it again? One last time, where is it here:




All done! Afterwards I plotted Isabella's data (averaged across two attempts at each trial type) like this:




When the red X is the uniquely colored item it can be found quickly. When it is absent, it takes a bit longer to check and make sure it is not there. However, when there are also a bunch of red Os present, one has to look for the combination (or, conjunction) of red and X to find the target because there are other red items and other Xs, but only one red X. That takes a bit longer. It takes even longer when it is absent because it is harder to make sure it is not there when there are both other Xs and other red things there.

Isabella immediately took up the idea that it was easier for her brain to find the only red thing and harder when it was not there and when there were other red things to "trick" her--she at first pointed at several red Os before finding the red X. (A nice example of searching through just one subset of the nontargets...) And she wanted to keep searching again and again, like a homemade "Where's Waldo" (or, one German version (I think there is another one, too), "Wo ist Walter"). It's nice that she is actually interested in what I did for my dissertation!

Technorati Tags: Anne Treisman, kids, psychology, science, visual search, dissertation, Where's Waldo? experiment

Seeing with your ears?

Here is a little insight into the sorts of experiments I do.

My previous research has mostly focused on the brain finds things visually. For example, how we can find an apple mixed in with other fruit (plus an example of how neurons in the parietal lobe might respond when faced with such a task, from a mini review in J Neuro):




Nowadays I have moved beyond vision to take a look at our other senses, such as how we hear and feel the world, and in particular, how all of this visual, auditory, and tactile information comes together. There are two ways we are doing this. First, we are using a program designed to aid the blind by transforming images into sound called The vOICe. The hope is that, with sufficient training, this device could allow the blind to "see" again, but by using their ears to receive visual-spatial information about the world. Here is what this basically looks like from a NY Times Magazine article on Peter Meijer's device:



(This picture tries to show how a small spy camera takes a picture of the area in front of the user, then transforms the picture into a soundscape. With practice one can learn to interpret these soundscapes in terms of what objects are in the field of view, and where they are, and in a sense "see" again. That is the end-goal at least!)

Secondly we are also studying synaesthesia (also spelled synesthesia), which is a special "cross-wiring" in the brain that certain people have that allows them to perceive something through a different modality than normal. For example, some persons see colors when they hear music. Others always see black-on-white text like this in different colors that are not there such as you see here. Both of these routes will allow us to better understand how the brain puts all of this information from different sources together into one coherent experience.

Technorati Tags: Journal of Neuroscience, New York Times Magazine, science, sensory substitution, synaesthesia, synesthesia, The vOICe, visual search