For my third post regarding the VARK citation of Alan
Baddeley’s 1984 book, I will delve into semantic memory research (See my
previous posts for why I am writing about Baddeley at all). Semantic memory
involves storing the concepts and information that are necessary for the
understanding of ideas and the meaning of whatever you are trying to remember. One
of the central tenants of learning and memory that is discussed in many
introductory psychology texts is that it is easier to remember the meaning of a
particular word (a semantic memory) rather than the font and color in which
they were presented (a so called visual memory) (Myers, 2006).
Baddeley goes through a significant discussion of semantic
memory research; however, I believe the most relevant portion for my
examination of the VARK sources is when Baddeley begins to probe into the
nature of what a semantic memory is. He examines the role of language in
semantic memories followed by a discussion of the role of visual images in
semantic memories.
So, what is the nature of the semantic memory? How are
concepts, ideas, and other important pieces of information that allow us to
understand the world around us stored? Does the sensory modality that was
present at the time of encoding play a role in the storage and retrieval of
that memory?
According to Baddeley, “…semantics has been studied
primarily by linguists or psycholinguists, and hence the greatest emphasis on
meaning has been in relation to language.”
There are two main theories presented in the book regarding
the relationship between language, semantics, and memory. One theory regarding
the importance of language in meaning is the linguistic relativity hypothesis,
initially proposed by Benjamin Lee Whorf. According to Baddeley, “Whorf argues
that language is not simply a way of expressing your view of the world but that
language itself determines this view.” One example that many are familiar with
is the idea that Eskimos have many words for describing snow. As someone that
lived in California for my entire life, I have two main words that come to my
mind when I think of snow: white and cold. If given a piece of snow to examine,
it would not be hard to imagine that an Eskimo would notice more details and
probably remember them better than I would.
One interesting example that supports the Whorfian
hypothesis involves comparing Korean and English speakers. When Korean speakers
are discussing putting something into something else, they distinguish between
loose and tight fits. English speakers do not do this. According to the
linguistic relativity hypothesis, this would lead to differing perceptions at
times and possibly a different way of understanding the world.
“To test whether these
cross-linguistic differences are reflected in the way English and Korean
speakers represent spatial relations, McDonough et al. (2000) showed scenes
involving tight or loose fit to Korean and English speaking adults. After they
had seen a few examples of either tight fit or loose fit, the subjects were
shown an example of tight fit on one screen, and an example of loose fit on
another. While Korean speaking adults looked longer at the kind of spatial
relation they had just been familiarized with, English speakers did not
distinguish between the tight and loose fit scenes, looking equally long at the
familiar and novel scenes. Further, when given several examples of tight fit
and one example of loose fit (or vice versa), Korean adults could easily pick
out the odd picture, but English speakers could not.” (Boroditsky, 2003)
However, according to Boroditsky (2003), the Whorphian view
has fallen out of mainstream psychological thought. The alternative view is
that language may simply follow perception. Maybe the Eskimo has so many words
to describe snow because of their frequent and varying perceptions of snow.
Whorf believed that the Eskimo’s words led to their perceptual capabilities
with snow and the alternative viewpoint is that the perceptions lead to the
development of language. Eleanor Rosch’s work with the Dani tribe provides
support for the alternative hypothesis. Apparently, the Dani have no words for
specific colors, but instead of words for dark and light. Rosch found that the
Dani could still discriminate between typical colors (red, green, blue, yellow)
and atypical colors (periwinkle etc) (Rosch (1977) as cited in Baddeley(1984)).
“Despite having no labels for red, green, and yellow, the Dani found them easy
colours to handle, suggesting that language is based on perception, not the
reverse.” (Baddeley, 1984).
Now, I admit that a discussion of linguistic relativity is a
bit of a digression, but I will do my best to relate some of this to VARK in a
bit. Bear with me while I move on to the discussion of visual images in
semantic memories. It should be pretty obvious that various senses can play a
role in semantic memories- without having words for it, I can appreciate and
examine the details of various paintings (something with a visual component),
music (something with an auditory component), and even food (something with a
gustatory component). Think about the difference between two of your favorite
painters. What do you like more about one or the other? Could you tell one
apart from the other? What about two of your favorite musicians? Can you easily put the differences between
the two into words? Many people say something like “I don’t know why I like it,
but I just do.” Or, “I’m not sure how I know this is -insert band name here- but it just sounds like them.” Of course, if
you are an artist or a musician, you probably can go into the details using
words, but that would be the exception here and not the rule.
In my absolute favorite experiment from this book, Baddeley
discusses Ian Moar’s mental triangulation experiment. In the experiment, Moar
examined the mental maps of housewives from Glasgow and housewives from
Cambridge. The result of Moar’s experiment is shown below. Notice that the Glasgow
housewives exaggerate the size of Scotland, relative to England and the
Cambridge housewives exaggerate the size of England relative to Scotland.
Here is what the real map looks like:
 |
| Baddeley (1984) |
And here are what the Cambridge (left) and Glasgow housewives (right) came up with:
 |
| Baddeley (1984) |
What
is the point of this experiment? Aside from the obvious perceptual differences
between the two groups, Baddeley uses the concept of mental maps as an example
of something semantic that is probably not entirely represented linguistically.
It is not a huge stretch to imagine that there is some visual imagery going on
here.
“Is it possible then that semantic
concepts are stored as images? There is no doubt that visual or spatial
characteristics can be important. One might for example have a concept of all
round things or red things, but it is much less easy to argue that a concept
such as justice of guilt is primarily stored in terms of its visual
characteristics. Of course one can come up with visual images that might in
some sense represent justice, but such images would be of very little
assistance in deciding whether justice had been done in a particular court
judgment. The most plausible assumption is probably that concepts are stored in
some abstract code which may be translated into a verbal or linguistic form or
into an image when the need arises…” (Baddeley, 1984)
Ok, so how does this tie to VARK? The language aspects
discussed above could link to the A or R parts of the theory and the visual
imagery discussed has obvious ties to the V component. The K component appears
to be entirely ignored in this discussion; some may argue that the concept of a
muscle or motor memory could be the needed tie for the K component. However,
motor memories are probably not the same types of memories that have been
discussed here (procedural vs semantic, explicit vs implicit).
For this part of Baddeley’s book to be particularly useful
for VARK theorists, there should be some mention of individual differences.
According to VARK, the person who prefers a visual modality presentation of
information should do better later (for recall) when this preference is catered
to. The same would be true for any of the other modality preferences (according
to VARK).
Does the information discussed in the semantic memory
portion of Baddeley’s book provide support either for or against this? In my
opinion, the answer is somewhere between against
this and neither.
In one experiment that directly contrasts two presentation
modalities, subjects were told that they had to categorize objects. They
received the object in a picture format or in a written format with their names
printed out. Subjects were equally fast at categorizing both formats (Potter
and Faulconer (1975) as cited in Baddeley(1984)). In this experiment, no individual differences
were discussed, so we are left not knowing whether there were subgroups that
did better at one format or the other. Thus, there could have been subgroups
(in this experiment) that were better at one or the other and when the data
from each group was combined, the differences disappeared.
Furthermore, Baddeley cites Batlett (1968) concerning
individual differences between visual imagery abilities and recall abilities. There
do appear to be some individuals that are far superior in their ability to use
visual imagery. However, for VARK to be supported, this would have to lead to
recall differences later. Thus the “visual learner” not only needs to be better
at the encoding/imaging portion, but also at the retrieval/recall portion. According
to Baddeley, there is a “lack of a difference” between those that use visual
imagery and those that use linguistic strategies. One must be careful when
looking at this to reach strong conclusions one way or the other regarding
VARK. VARK theories would propose the modality of presentation matters and this
is something that is not discussed in this portion of the book. Thus, this lack
of individual differences neither supports nor refutes VARK theory.
Theoretically, Baddeley supports a position that may argue
against VARK proposed individual differences. He believes that the lack of
differences between those that use visual imagery more and those that use
linguistic methods are probably because regardless of how the information was
encoded (through visual imagery or not), “since both draw on a single abstract
store, the accuracy of what they recall will not differ” (Baddeley, 1984). Again
though, one must be careful to reach a conclusion here. Without division into
VARK subgroups, one could argue that no difference was found because the V
learners were equally as able as the A and R learners.
So, my conclusions from this post are a bit mixed. There is
no definitive evidence in favor or against VARK theories. Next up: Working Memory and VARK.
References
Baddeley, A. (1984). Your Memory: A User’s Guide, England:
Penguin.
Boroditsky, L. (2003). Linguistic Relativity. In Nadel, L.
(Ed.) Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science. MacMillan Press: London, UK, pages
917-921.
Myers, D. (2006). Psychology 8th ed. Worth
Publishers.
No comments:
Post a Comment