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From: William.Wilson@p0.f89.n129.z1.fidonet.org (William Wilson)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: braille reading
Message-ID: <16121@handicap.news>
Date: 17 Jun 91 20:33:32 GMT
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[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

To: mgflax@phoenix.princeton.edu (Marshall G. Flax)

 >>     Since with sight the total visual field is stored
 > for the duration
 > >of the iconic memory, it can contain as much as the eye
 > is capable of
 > >sensing in that amount of time.

 > Actually, that's not quite true.  Certainly a good deal
 > of the visual
 > field is processed simultaneously, and it is clear that
 > a good deal of
 > the results of that processing are stored.  But since the
 > low-level
 > processing is itself influenced by such high-level details
 > as attention,
 > it is not possible that the *entire* visual field is stored
Marshall,

    Although your point is of course meaningless in a discussion of
comparison of braille and print reading, as attention, if a factor
in the one will likewise be a factor in the other, I'm afraid you
will have to substantiate your declaration  with some facts for me!

    Attention, as I was taught, is a factor in processing of information
into short term and long term memory, but definately not considered
a factor in sensory storage of information such as iconic memory!

 Obviously, if you are using attention to describe where the subject
has their eyes pointed, it would be a factor in determining what
comprises the visual field at a particular minute, but Sperling et.
al. in their experiment, most definately did not consider it a factor!

 In fact, tthey quite clearly referred to their findings as denoting
a "sensory storage", meaning pricisely that, storage at the sensory
level, not at the perceptual level where attention is a factor!  In
other words, whether the subject recognizes anything at all from the
iconic memory is irrelevant, they hypothesized exactly as I said,
a very brief storage of all sensory information, long before attention
plays any affect at all, at least in the way attention is generally
used in the fields of sensation, perception and cognition.
                                                        Willie

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