Programs That Teach Visual Expertise

The Image Quiz Project

Dr. Bruce KirchoffUniversity of North Carolina at Greensboro

Outline

• Visual Learning– Cognitive Psychology of Visual

Perception– Woody Plants of the Southeastern US

•General Principles•Using the program

– Other applications•Chemistry: Amino Acids•Mathematics: Basic equations

– Some consequences

• Visual Keys, a new approach

Cognitive Psychology of Visual Perception•Analytic Perception

–may be our earliest perceptual mode–used by non-experts

•dog owners•students

–is part based–is reportable

•Holistic Perception–used to perceive faces–used by experts in their domain of expertise

•dog show judges•systematists

–is configuration based–is non-reportable

Gauthier et al. 1998. Vision Research 38: 2401-2428

Car experts show activation in the right FFA for faces and for cars, but not for birds. Bird experts show activation for faces and birds, but not for cars.

Faces Cars Birds

car exp

bird exp

Bukach, C. M. et al. 2006. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10:159-166.

Expertise-related activity, right Fusiform Face Area

Electrophysical measurement: Geodesic Sensor Net• Used for recording Event Related

Potentials (ERP)

http://whyfiles.org/

Effects of active studying

Rhodes, G. et al. (2004) J. Cognitive Neuroscience 16:189–203

no training; passive viewing

training; active

identification

Outline

• Visual Learning– Cognitive Psychology of Visual

Perception– Woody Plants of the Southeastern US

•General Principles•Using the program

– Other applications•Chemistry: Amino Acids•Mathematics: Basic equations

– Some consequences

• Visual Keys, a new approach

Botanical Experts

• A good field botanist can identify plants from– fragments– moving vehicles– non-typical specimen

• A taxonomic specialist can identify species that stump even good field botanists

• Cannot always explain how they know what they know

Field Botany• Observation and naming of species

– Repetition!•“That is Acer rubrum” ; “That is Acer

rubrum” again; “That is Acer rubrum, but it is not a very typical specimen”

– quizzes• Variation!

– see more than one specimen of A. rubrum

– plants learned based on vegetative and floral “characters”

• Relatively little emphasis on traditional characters

Woody plants of the Southeastern US CD•Created to simulate a field botany course

–Two main types of study modules

•Introducing the taxa

–images of the plant presented with their names–familiarize students with the plants

•Quizzes–Four kinds of image drills

http://www.mbgpress.info/index.php?task=id&id=08025

Woody plants of the Southeast CD• Design Goal: Create image quizzes of

sufficient difficulty to actively engage the user

• Quiz design adapted from the cognitive psychology literature– 1: Image naming with prompt– 2: Image naming without prompt– 3: Image comparison– 4: Image verification

• TEST module incorporates routines 2- 4• Display time is user definable, from 0.1

to 4 seconds

Woody Plants of the SE CD - Images• Images are standardized • The work of my co-author, Steve Baskauf• e. g., front and back of leaves shown

together

• The images are the hidden heart of the program

Let’s learn some plants!

• Demonstrate the WPSEUS Program

Outline

• Visual Learning– Cognitive Psychology of Visual

Perception– Woody Plants of the Southeastern US

•General Principles•Using the program

– Other applications•Chemistry: Amino Acids•Mathematics: Basic equations

– Some consequences

• Visual Keys, a new approach

Learning chemistry through the amino acids• Demonstrate Amino prototype

Other applications

• Chemistry: Amino Acids

histidine

ionic

phenylalanine

nonpolar

Outline

• Visual Learning– Cognitive Psychology of Visual

Perception– Woody Plants of the Southeastern US

•General Principles•Using the program

– Other applications•Chemistry: Amino Acids•Mathematics: Basic equations

– Some consequences

• Visual Keys, a new approach

Teaching Math through Visualization

Mathematicians read equations holistically

How many types of equations?

Are these associations correct?

Outline

• Visual Learning– Cognitive Psychology of Visual

Perception– Woody Plants of the Southeastern US

•General Principles•Using the program

– Other applications•Chemistry: Amino Acids•Mathematics: Basic equations

– Some consequences

• Visual Keys, a new approach

What are we teaching?

• Analytic view– Image recognition

• Holistic view– Scientific intuition

• Intuition– “an intuitive judgment, based upon

professional experience, as to where the data is pointing and where new discoveries are likely to be made.” Denis Lamoureux

– Experience is necessary for scientific intuitionhttp://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199604/0247.html

Small, Cheap, and Out of Control

• Small– Quick to develop and easy to deploy

• Cheap– Inexpensive to develop and maintain

•Low cost•Low human overhead

• Out of Control– Can be used effectively without

training or supervision

• Wide distribution of effective learning at low cost

Brooks, R. 1989. Fast, cheep and out of control. J Brit. Interplanetary Soc. 42: 478-485

Collaborators and Acknowledgements• Woody Plants of the Southeast

– Steve Baskauf http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu/

– Alexander Krings, Herbarium, NCSU– Ben Purcell and John Cox (programmers)– Woody Plants of the SE is published by

Missouri Botanical Garden Press

• Cognitive Psychology Consultation– Isabel Gauthier, Vanderbilt

• Mathematics– Dr. Raymond Lee, UNC Pembroke

• Keys– Dr. David Remington, UNCG