Influence of six types of visual structure on complexity judgments in children and adults.

Abstract

Individuals at five grade levels (kindergarten, Grade 2, Grade 4, Grade 6, and college) made pair-comparison judgments of visual complexity. The influence of the presence or absence of six types of visual structure (double symmetry, vertical symmetry, horizontal symmetry, diagonal symmetry, checkerboard organization, and rotational organization) and of amount of contour were examined. Two general developmental trends were revealed: First, the age at which visual structure initially affected complexity judgments varied with the type of structure, independent of amount of contour, within the range of contour values used. Second, there was a uniform increase in the effect of structure on complexity judgments between the fourth and sixth grades. These results are discussed in relation to possible mechanisms of visual pattern encoding and complexity judgment.

Goodness takes effort: perceptual organization in dual-task settings

“…In particular, symmetry, especially vertical symmetry, is hard to ignore (Chipman, Mendelson, & Morton, 1979;Lachmann & Geyer, 2003;Palmer, 1985). Symmetry perception may be phylogenetically predetermined (Corballis & Beale, 1970;Herbert & Humphrey, 1996;Lachmann & Geyer, 2003).…”

Language and the career of similarity

“…Four-year-olds chose randomly, whereas 6-and 8-year-olds were progressively more likely to select the figure with the common higher-order relations. Additional evidence is provided by Chipman and Mendelson (1979), who presented 5-, 7-, 9-, and 11-year-old children with pairs of patterned 248 D. Gentner and M. J. Rattermann displays and asked them to judge relative complexity. They found an age-related increase in the effect of structure on these complexity judgments.…”

Stimulus complexity and information integration in the spontaneous interpretations of line graphs

“…However, if an integral part of the interpretation of line graphs is an evaluation of the overall form of the line, then the number of points along the line may have little impact on study times. Instead, global features of the line, such as the presence of symmetry, previously found to mediate assessments of shape complexity (Chipman and Mendelson, 1979), should better predict study times. Additionally, research on directed interpretations of graphs has shown that departures from linearity can be used as efficient response cues (Buttigieg and Sanderson, 1991).…”