P3D Re: short-term visual memory

[Larry Berlin <lberlin@xxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997
>John W Roberts writes:
>
>.............................
>Regarding differences in visual memory among individuals, the ABC News Web
>page had an article yesterday (don't know if it's still on), with a very
>interesting animated demo of a test of the speed of visual memory. One of
>the items claimed in the article is that humans have a lot of trouble
>retaining more than about four items at once in their short-term visual
>memory.
>
>Since viewing of a normal stereo photo consists in part of "scanning" a
>scene and building up a mental model, that line of research might be of
>interest to those who wish to design new stereo imaging systems.


****  I would hate to buy a product engineered on that presumption. I figure
the visual processing of the mind is more flexible than such generalizations
make it out to be. The result of using such supposed properties, might be
another of those irritating technical advances that in fact set us back a
few years. There would be all sorts of problems getting anything
sophisticated or full of action to work right on a screen that refuses to
use more than four objects at a time.... I'd much rather put lots of stuff
on the screen and leave it up to the viewer to keep track of however much
they can. In fact, many times it's intended that a viewer track certain
activities, and maybe it's only a few cues that keep them going, but at any
moment they can stop scanning the entire scene and concentrate on an area of
interest. If no more details were present, that would be a problem.

Larry Berlin

Email: lberlin@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.sonic.net/~lberlin/
http://3dzine.simplenet.com/


------------------------------