Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 197.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 21:12:16 +0100
From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi@statistik.uni-dortmund.de>
Subject: Center for Research Language article on "Objective Visual
Complexity"
Dear humanists,
((Hi, I thought --some members might be interested in the below
article and can use the paper in their research in the field of
Linguistics, Computer Science and Cognitive Science - complete details
about CRL Newsletter can be read at
(http://crl.ucsd.edu/newsletter/info.html)
Thank you.-Arun))
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Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 20:08:40 -0700 (PDT)
From: CRL Newsletter <newslett@crl.ucsd.edu>
[--]
CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN LANGUAGE
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N E W S L E T T E R A N N O U N C E M E N T
July, 2000.
Volume 12, No. 2.
http://www.crl.ucsd.edu/newsletter
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Objective Visual Complexity as a Variable in Studies of Picture Naming
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Anna Szkely
Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest
Elizabeth Bates
University of California, San Diego
A b s t r a c t
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Visual complexity is an important variable for studies working with
picture stimuli, including picture naming. Traditionally, subjective
ratings by 20-30 subjects have been used for this purpose, an approach
that may be influenced by perceptual and cognitive variables (e.g.,
familiarity with the object) that are not directly related to visual
complexity. The present study offers an objective and easy way of
measuring visual complexity by taking the file size of picture stimuli
material (black-and-white, simple line drawings) as the basis. Over 30
different file types and degrees of compression were compared for 520
object pictures, and analyzed to determine whether these measures differ
in their influence on picture-naming behavior. Results suggest that PDF,
TIFF and JPG formats may provide valid indices of objective visual
complexity. The effect of these objective measures on picture naming were
compared with published subjective visual complexity data from an English
and a Spanish study on overlapping items. Comparative analysis with other
picture-naming variables shows that these objective measures - unlike
subjective ratings - have no effect on RT, are unrelated to word frequency
or age of acquisition, and show a more modest word length effect on the
dominant response. However, they do affect picture-naming accuracy
(production of the target name), an effect not reported in previous
studies using subjective ratings of visual complexity. Subjective and
objective complexity measures are both useful, and they are correlated,
but they also differ in potentially important ways.
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You will notice that the CRL newsletter has undergone some minor
renovations. We now have a news section in addition to the featured
article. We would appreciate it if you could send us news that you think
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Editor's Note:
This newsletter is produced and distributed by the Center for Research in
Language, a research center at the University of California, San Diego
that unites the efforts of fields such as Cognitive Science, Linguistics,
Psychology, Computer Science, Sociology, and Philosophy, all who share an
interest in language. We feature papers related to language and cognition
and welcome response from friends and colleagues at UCSD as well as other
institutions.
Please contact editor for comments, questions or information.
Ayse Pinar Saygin, Editor
Center for Research in Language,0526
9500 Gilman Drive,
University of California, San Diego 92093-0526
editor@crl.ucsd.edu
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