Thinking and Seeing: Visual Metacognition in Adults and Children

303 Pages·2004·1.43 MB·English

by  Daniel T. Levin

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Thinking and Seeing V
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Visual Metacognition in Adults and Children E
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EDITED BY DANIEL T. LEVIN
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Experimental research has shown that people miss apparently obvious visual discontinuities—a phenome-
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non known as “change blindness.” For example, in one experiment, subjects watching a brief film of a
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conversation between two actors did not notice that in some shots one actor appeared wearing a large, n
colorful scarf and in other shots she wore no scarf; in another experiment, subjects did not even notice when k
one actor was replaced by another between shots. Moreover, when told what they had missed, many subjects i
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were incredulous, and occasionally even insisted that the film they had seen had not included anything
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unusual (“change blindness blindness”). This kind of conflict between actual and presumed cognitive
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functioning has been analyzed in other areas of metacognition; the contributors to Thinking and Seeing
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explore the implications for vision, which have remained largely unexamined. Doing so, they make important
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connections among diverse areas in cognitive science and provide a starting point for new research on how
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people think about seeing.
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Demonstrating the interdisciplinary nature of the work in this field, the contributors draw on developing
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theories of mind to explore the foundations of metacognitive understanding in children and metacognition
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errors by adults; on traditional metacognition research to analyze potential connections between research on
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problem solving and vision; on research in folk psychology and concepts to examine “the illusion of explana-
tory depth” and how systematic our understanding of seeing is; and on an understanding of the relationship
between consciousness and cognitive control of ongoing tasks.
DANIEL T. LEVINis Associate Professor of Psychology and Human Development at Vanderbilt University.
A Bradford Book
Dare A. Baldwin Frank C. Keil Lynne M. Reder The MIT Press
Thinking and Seeing
Melissa R. Beck Arthur F. Kramer Erik D. Reichle Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jane E. Cottrell Daniel T. Levin Leon Rozenblit Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
Visual Metacognition in Adults and Children
http://mitpress.mit.edu
Rachel A. Diana John M. Marazita Megan M. Saylor
John H. Flavell William E. Merriman Brian J. Scholl Cover Image: © 2004, Getty Images, Inc.
EDITED BY DANIEL T. LEVIN
Carl E. Granrud Candice M. Mills Jonathan W. Schooler 0-262-62181-9
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David V. Halpern Heather L. Pringle Daniel J. Simons
David E. Irwin Jeffrey J. Rachlinski Gerald A. Winer
Thinking and Seeing

Thinking and Seeing
Visual Metacognition in Adults and Children
edited by Daniel T. Levin
ABradford Book
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2004 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechan-
ical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without per-
mission in writing from the publisher.
This book was set in Palatino by SNPBest-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong and was printed and bound
in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thinking and seeing : visual metacognition in adults and children / edited by Daniel T. Levin.
p. cm.
“ABradford book.”
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-262-12262-6 (hc. : alk. paper)—ISBN 0-262-62181-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Visual perception—Congresses. 2. Metacognition—Congresses. I. Levin, Daniel T.
BF241.T48 2004
152.14—dc22
2003064194
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Daniel T. Levin
Chapter 1
Development of Knowledge about Vision 13
John H. Flavell
Chapter 2
Action Analysis and Change Blindness: Possible Links 37
Megan M. Saylor and Dare A. Baldwin
Chapter 3
Young Children’s Awareness of Their Own Lexical Ignorance: Relations to
Word Mapping, Memory Processes, and Beliefs about Change
Detection 57
William E. Merriman and John M. Marazita
Chapter 4
Visual Metacognition and the Development of Size Constancy 75
Carl E. Granrud
Chapter 5
The Odd Belief That Rays Exit the Eye during Vision 97
Gerald A. Winer and Jane E. Cottrell
Chapter 6
Thinking about Seeing: Spanning the Difference between Metacognitive Failure
and Success 121
Daniel T. Levin and Melissa R. Beck
Chapter 7
“Change Blindness” Blindness: An Implicit Measure of a Metacognitive
Error 145
Brian J. Scholl, Daniel J. Simons, and Daniel T. Levin
vi Contents
Chapter 8
Individual Differences in the Visual Representation of Scenes 165
Heather L. Pringle, Arthur F. Kramer, and David E. Irwin
Chapter 9
Visual versus Verbal Metacognition: Are They Really Different? 187
Rachel A. Diana and Lynne M. Reder
Chapter 10
Zoning Out while Reading: Evidence for Dissociations between Experience and
Metaconsciousness 203
Jonathan W. Schooler, Erik D. Reichle, and David V. Halpern
Chapter 11
What Lies Beneath? Understanding the Limits of Understanding 227
Frank C. Keil, Leonid Rozenblit, and Candice M. Mills
Chapter 12
Misunderstanding Ability, Misallocating Responsibility 251
Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
About the Contributors 277
Index 283
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Katherine Floody for her invaluable assistance in organiz-
ing the Kent Forum on Visual Metacognition and this volume; the Kent State
University Applied Psychology Center and its director, Stevan Hobfoll, for under-
writing the forum; and The Inn at Honey Run in Millersburg, Ohio, for provid-
ing us with a home for the forum.
Preparation of this book was supported in part by NSF grant SES-0214969 to
Daniel Levin.

Thinking and Seeing