Results of the experiment
Jul. 25th, 2005 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaFirst, a brief explanation of the nature of the task: I deliberately picked one of the examples from the book that was obviously easiest to do visually. In fact, I can't think of a straightforward way to count the number of rooms in a grandparental dwelling in the auditory modality. So I was hoping that all the responses would be visual, or at least visual-kinesthetic. The question would be the precise method used.
The particular variable of interest was whether the method would be sequential or holistic. And I think I did get some useful data on that.
There were eighteen volunteer respondents. I re-iterate, partly to remind myself and partly for completeness's sake, that this is a volunteer sample from the population "people who read my LiveJournal". The results thus cannot be reliably generalized to any other population, and may not be representative even of that population.
Of the eighteen, one responded that he could not complete the task at all. Thus, neither holistic visual memory nor sequential visual memory sufficed in this case. I will refrain from categorizing this person, as there was not enough information given to guess which, if either, method was attempted.
The vast majority of the respondents - fifteen - counted sequentially by visualizing a path through the house (or, in some cases, houses, as they did both sets of grandparents). Nine subjects (half the sample) specifically mentioned walking through the house, which suggests to me that there is at least some kinesthetic component in addition to the visual one. Several other people described a path through the house, or a "mental tour," but did not specify how they mentally moved along that path (one mentioned "backing out," which at least implies a physical orientation with respect to the path of motion). A couple of people mentioned specific visual cues for rooms, such as colors, furniture, lighting, or even people. One person specifically mentioned olfactory cues for each room in the house, as well as walking - so the memories that permitted counting were represented sequentially in multiple sensory modalities for this person. One person specifically mentioned that there was no motion or transition between one room and the next; he also mentioned that some of the rooms were abstracted rather than fully visualized, and others were visualized in part. (I want to come back to this description in a minute.)
One person states that she "visualized the house" and then counted the rooms in her head. It was not clear from the description whether this was a sequential path, or whether this was an overhead view of the house. Barring any further description from this person, I will classify her with the following as a holistic visualizer, as it sounded like she visualized the whole house at once.
Finally, one person took a specific concrete memory of events that occurred in the rooms of the house (actually, houses, as he did three) and then assembling those rooms three-dimensionally into the plan of the house and counting. This person used the metaphor of a puzzle, rather than a walk or a tour; this is clearly a holistic visualization, without a strong sequential element. There was no kinesthetic element, but like one of the sequential people, he mentioned olfactory cues for some of the rooms, and for one of the houses as a whole.
So, summing up: fifteen sequential, one holistic, one possibly holistic, and one neither/no memory retrieved. The person who had the holistic memory is probably the most strongly spatial/visual person who reads this thing.
The one person who was clearly identified as holistic and one of the people who answered sequentially who I also identify as spatial/visual were both unusual in clearly lacking a kinesthetic element of travel through the house. They also both mentioned that some parts of the houses were initially missing, because they had no strong memories of them, but that they realized that they had to be present because otherwise there were places that didn't connect, or empty spaces in their mental structure of the house. In both cases there is a clear sense of the 2-D or 3-D layout of the house that is not necessarily clear from the "walking tour" descriptions.
While technically the experimenter is not supposed to also be a subject, I suppose I should share how I did it. I had two grandparental houses that I visited frequently from age 3 to age 16 (parents and both sets of grandparents all live in the same hometown).
For my maternal grandparents', I did exactly the same thing as the majority of the sequential group: I did a walking tour of the house, quite literally. The tour in fact starts with a specific memory: I used to have to feed their dogs when they were out of town, so I would walk from my house to theirs (about a 3/4 mile walk, one way). At one point, I had forgotten my key, so I slipped into their garage/workshop through the dog door (they had a large German shepherd, so that's not as impressive as it might sound), found the spare key, and unlocked the garage door into the furnace room. The memory proceeds from there through the rest of the house: guest bedroom, guest bathroom, master bedroom, master bathroom (divided into two parts), my aunt's bedroom, the kitchen, dining room/den/music room (semi-divided), living room. There is definitely a sense of walking from one room to the next (including hurrying through the master bedroom, as I was not normally allowed in there).
For my paternal grandparents', however, it's quite different. This may be partially because there is no obvious way to do that same sort of tour of the house, as it's not as simply connected - some rooms have only one doorway, and some have as many as five. The actual structure of the house itself, however, is simpler: it's a two-by-two-by-two block. So I start with eight rooms from that geometric structure, plus the upstairs and downstairs hallways, for ten. There is no sequentiality for those initial rooms at all. Then I have to start from the basement and sort of helix up the outside of that solid block to count all of the rooms that were added on to that original structure (including the kitchen and all the bathrooms). So for me that's partly spatial/geometric/holistic - but not visual! - and partly visual/kinesthetic/sequential.
I'll unscreen all the comments tomorrow, but for the moment, any further observations or comments on the outcomes? I'm especially interested in the two olfactory responses, which I wasn't expecting.
The particular variable of interest was whether the method would be sequential or holistic. And I think I did get some useful data on that.
There were eighteen volunteer respondents. I re-iterate, partly to remind myself and partly for completeness's sake, that this is a volunteer sample from the population "people who read my LiveJournal". The results thus cannot be reliably generalized to any other population, and may not be representative even of that population.
Of the eighteen, one responded that he could not complete the task at all. Thus, neither holistic visual memory nor sequential visual memory sufficed in this case. I will refrain from categorizing this person, as there was not enough information given to guess which, if either, method was attempted.
The vast majority of the respondents - fifteen - counted sequentially by visualizing a path through the house (or, in some cases, houses, as they did both sets of grandparents). Nine subjects (half the sample) specifically mentioned walking through the house, which suggests to me that there is at least some kinesthetic component in addition to the visual one. Several other people described a path through the house, or a "mental tour," but did not specify how they mentally moved along that path (one mentioned "backing out," which at least implies a physical orientation with respect to the path of motion). A couple of people mentioned specific visual cues for rooms, such as colors, furniture, lighting, or even people. One person specifically mentioned olfactory cues for each room in the house, as well as walking - so the memories that permitted counting were represented sequentially in multiple sensory modalities for this person. One person specifically mentioned that there was no motion or transition between one room and the next; he also mentioned that some of the rooms were abstracted rather than fully visualized, and others were visualized in part. (I want to come back to this description in a minute.)
One person states that she "visualized the house" and then counted the rooms in her head. It was not clear from the description whether this was a sequential path, or whether this was an overhead view of the house. Barring any further description from this person, I will classify her with the following as a holistic visualizer, as it sounded like she visualized the whole house at once.
Finally, one person took a specific concrete memory of events that occurred in the rooms of the house (actually, houses, as he did three) and then assembling those rooms three-dimensionally into the plan of the house and counting. This person used the metaphor of a puzzle, rather than a walk or a tour; this is clearly a holistic visualization, without a strong sequential element. There was no kinesthetic element, but like one of the sequential people, he mentioned olfactory cues for some of the rooms, and for one of the houses as a whole.
So, summing up: fifteen sequential, one holistic, one possibly holistic, and one neither/no memory retrieved. The person who had the holistic memory is probably the most strongly spatial/visual person who reads this thing.
The one person who was clearly identified as holistic and one of the people who answered sequentially who I also identify as spatial/visual were both unusual in clearly lacking a kinesthetic element of travel through the house. They also both mentioned that some parts of the houses were initially missing, because they had no strong memories of them, but that they realized that they had to be present because otherwise there were places that didn't connect, or empty spaces in their mental structure of the house. In both cases there is a clear sense of the 2-D or 3-D layout of the house that is not necessarily clear from the "walking tour" descriptions.
While technically the experimenter is not supposed to also be a subject, I suppose I should share how I did it. I had two grandparental houses that I visited frequently from age 3 to age 16 (parents and both sets of grandparents all live in the same hometown).
For my maternal grandparents', I did exactly the same thing as the majority of the sequential group: I did a walking tour of the house, quite literally. The tour in fact starts with a specific memory: I used to have to feed their dogs when they were out of town, so I would walk from my house to theirs (about a 3/4 mile walk, one way). At one point, I had forgotten my key, so I slipped into their garage/workshop through the dog door (they had a large German shepherd, so that's not as impressive as it might sound), found the spare key, and unlocked the garage door into the furnace room. The memory proceeds from there through the rest of the house: guest bedroom, guest bathroom, master bedroom, master bathroom (divided into two parts), my aunt's bedroom, the kitchen, dining room/den/music room (semi-divided), living room. There is definitely a sense of walking from one room to the next (including hurrying through the master bedroom, as I was not normally allowed in there).
For my paternal grandparents', however, it's quite different. This may be partially because there is no obvious way to do that same sort of tour of the house, as it's not as simply connected - some rooms have only one doorway, and some have as many as five. The actual structure of the house itself, however, is simpler: it's a two-by-two-by-two block. So I start with eight rooms from that geometric structure, plus the upstairs and downstairs hallways, for ten. There is no sequentiality for those initial rooms at all. Then I have to start from the basement and sort of helix up the outside of that solid block to count all of the rooms that were added on to that original structure (including the kitchen and all the bathrooms). So for me that's partly spatial/geometric/holistic - but not visual! - and partly visual/kinesthetic/sequential.
I'll unscreen all the comments tomorrow, but for the moment, any further observations or comments on the outcomes? I'm especially interested in the two olfactory responses, which I wasn't expecting.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 01:26 am (UTC)Second, for me kinesthetic recall was almost mandatory for your question. If I'd attempted a holistic recall, I'd lose count. When counting -anything,- I have to have some method to organize the thing being counted into groups, or at least into "counted that already" and "still need to count it." I lose count and make errors VERY easily. I think any "counting" question is going to bias in favor of sequential response, and possibly for kinesthetic as well.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 10:50 pm (UTC)One of the surprises for me in this book has been finding out that there are people who come out as "visual" people in a modality test who nevertheless don't fall into the "visual-spatial" category as the book defines it - it's the spatial-ness that's the key.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-27 12:21 am (UTC)Which book is this, by the way? I don't recall you mentioning the title.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-27 03:25 am (UTC)According to her, the number of rooms is not particularly important for a v-s learner, although the complexity of the structure might be. In the case of the house I did partially spatially, the structure was really, really simple.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-27 11:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 01:26 am (UTC)If you want more info on that, just holler.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 01:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 01:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 01:57 am (UTC)Hope I'm not misunderstanding what you mean by "kinesthetic".
no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 05:23 pm (UTC)However, my process was definitely linear, and not holistic. I identify with the part of
no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 05:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-27 07:53 am (UTC)I am not sure I could do a sequential tour. I;m missing entrances, hallways, and other important elements.
Instead I used a technique I use constantly as an artist, I used variable levels of detail in constructing the space. Some rooms, where I had ritch tapestries of memories, could be rendered in great detail. Others were mere shadows. Some must have existed, (like restrooms), but I cannot recall them specifically, so they are not part of the reconstruction. Areas of the home that could not be reconstructed are left with loose textures and genstural abstracted geometry, so as to indicate that they are provisionally represented.
Detail comes from all the senses for me, so the best detail comes from smells, textures, fabrics, and qualities of heat and light. Smooth door handles, warm and moist air, the moving shadows of trees on a wall from light outside a window -- these are the best buildng blocks for me.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-27 08:08 am (UTC)I think I'm finally beginning to get some idea of how the visual-spatial mode works (in general, I mean, not necessarily specifically for you). I still don't grok - I'm not sure I ever will - but I have a handle on the overall shape of it (metaphorical language used very deliberately).
The book hit me hard enough on Monday I didn't read any more today. I need to go back to it while the gouges are still fresh, though - if I let it scab up, I won't get nearly as much out of it.
It probably seems insane to you that such a thing could be communicated in something so obviously auditory-sequential as text. It probably won't communicate as well to you, in fact, precisely because that is what it is - text written by someone who is an auditory-sequential, like me. But it really is communicating things to me that twelve years of conversations with you haven't managed. :)