Hi Jeff and other interested TiPsters:
It's a little late (I haven't checked TiPs for about a week), but I
do want to respond to the Sperling/sensory memory issues (briefly at
least).
In regard to the original issue about sensory memory and capacity, the
visual sensory store is believed to be veridical, so all (or practically
all) of the visual scene is stored (Long, 1980). In regard to the
differences in the visual field, Sakitt and Long (1978) is one article
that does deal with eccentricity. They did find evidence for both rod and
cone contributions to iconic storage, using stimulus presentations at
central viewing, and eccentricities of 3,7, and 10 deg. Consistent with
other work by Sakitt and Long (together and independently), the rod
contribution is believed to be greater in many conditions: "Although the
cone system will have better acuity, the rod icon will tend to be longer
and can be processed longer.", Sakitt & Long, 1978, p535). However, the
rod vs cone distinction, as well as whether visual sensory memory is
retinal or cortical, is highly controversial. Long (1980) and Coltheart
(1984) are excellent reviews of these issues.
These reviews also highlight that many different procedures are used
to investigate "iconic memory" (even the name is contentious: "visual
persistence", "visible persistence", "short-term visual memory" are other
terms that have been used). Besides the Sperling partial-report task, and
the similar Averbach and Coriell bar-probe task, there are "direct"
measures of persistence, such synchrony tasks and persistence of form
tasks, which do not require the report of verbal stimuli.
In regard to the "where is Sperling" question, George, after spending
many years at NYU, is now at Irving as previously mentioned by Patrick.
As a grad student of his at NYU from 1983 until I graduated in 1989, I can
vouch that George is amazingly productive and pioneering. His more recent
work has been in attention, motion perception, image processing, and
structure from motion, with a emphasis on math modeling. His chapter
(with Barbara Dosher) in the Handbook of Perception and Performance is an
outstanding contribution to attention research. Although much of George's
current work is beyond the scope of many undergraduate textbooks, his
research is cited in many Perception textbooks (e.g., Coren et al, 1999,
cite his motion detection research with Jan
vanSanten; Sekuler & Blake, 1994 cite his structure-from-motion work with
Dosher and Wurst). And, as a previous post addressed, you can see he is
not "missing", if you go to his webpage. And being a member of the
National Academy of Science isn't a small feat either.
On a personal note, George is a great teacher and mentor. He is one
of the brightest people I've ever known, and one of the hardest working.
He also happens to be a really nice guy, with a great sense of humor.
Oh well, so much for a brief response! --steve
References
Sakitt, B., & Long, G. M. (1978). Relative rod and cone contributions
in iconic storage. Perception & Psychophysics, 23, 527-536.
Long, G. M. (1980). Iconic memory: A review and critique of the study
of short-term visual storage. Psychological Review, 88, 785-820.
Coltheart, M. (1984). Sensory memory: A tutorial review. In H. Bouma
& D.G. Bouwhis (eds.), Attention and performance X. Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Sperling, G., & Dosher, B. A. (1986). Strategy and optimization in
human information processing. In K. Boff, L. Kaufman, & J. Thomas (eds.),
Handbook of perception and performance, Volume 1. New York: Wiley.
van Santen, J. P. H., & Sperling, G. (1985). Elaborated Reichardt
detectors. Journal of the Optical Society of America A, 2, 300-321.
Dosher, B. A., Sperling, G, & Wurst, S. A. (1986). Tradeoffs between
stereopsis and proximity luminance covariance. Vision Research, 26,
973-990.
********************************************************************
Stephen A. Wurst, Ph.D. e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Associate Professor voice: (315) 341-3460
Psychology Department fax: (315) 341-6330
State University of New York at Oswego
Oswego, NY 13126
website: http://www.oswego.edu/~psychol/wurst.htm
On Fri, 22 Jan 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Just a note to thank everyone for the information on Sperling: I can now
> update my talk on his work.
>
> Jeff Ricker
>
