In reading about visual and auditory processing it is truly amazing to think about all of the different things that are taking place when we process ordinary day to day stimulus. The bottom-up processing along with the top-down processing was one of the most applicable points when relating back to my experience in the classroom. I think this relates back to how a student is able to look at a word and use context clues to decode the word. I know it is so much easier for my lower level students to decode unfamiliar words when they are surrounded by clues to help them. This also takes me to the visual processing idea that a picture is worth a thousands words. For some of my students, a visual of a word helps them to process the word and form a connection with the word. In summary, I can conclude that both top-down and bottom-up processing play a huge role in the development of our students and their cognitive processes. This takes me back to chapter one where it discusses parallel processing. Basically our minds do a tremendous job of handling the many different signals and painting a clear picture for us.
I can also take the information about the processing into consideration when wondering why some of my students are not tuning in. Some students have trouble with verbal instruction and now I am wondering if that could not be related to a delay in their ability to process visual and auditory information simultaneously.
What I am most unclear about is the feature-analysis theory. Is this saying we are recognizing items simply by their basic features. Does it apply to all items or just curves and lines? I was seeing it as a skill that is used in the classroom where students are asked to group items using their attributes. The most obvious example would be polygons. Am I making this harder than it is?
I hope this works. As I read both Chapter 2 and the Clark/Mayer article the saying a picture is worth a thousand words kept going through my mind also. Thanks for stating that! I find that I need to pay attention to the bottom-up processing more often in Chemistry because concepts must build on one another. Without bits of knowledge in a particular order, Chemistry is made more difficult.
ReplyDeleteI like your point about students having trouble with verbal instructions. I think it is true, but even if given a visual students just want to jump in and get it done without looking at the instructions. Recently, I gave my Chemistry students a test with instructions to only do the odd problems. It was not surprising that the majority of the students missed the instructions, but I think they learned a quick lesson.
The feature-analysis theory I think applied to any concept that has characteristics that can be dissected into parts in order to then diagnose what makes it different from other concepts.Not really sure either?
Hi Karen,
ReplyDeleteFeature analysis theory says that we recognize visual objects based on some set of distinctive characteristics including curves and lines. There could be more but it has primarily been researched on letters. It isn't mutually exclusive with recognition-by-components theory, but it is presently more narrow in its application.
Thanks Mr. Martinez for the clarification.
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