Browsing by Author "Worley, Gary M."

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    Digital Images for the Virginia Tech Digital Library
    McMillan, Gail; Burr, Annette; Worley, Gary M. (Virginia Tech, 1996-03-20)
    All images photographed or copied by a unit of Information Systems will be scanned and contributed to the Virginia Tech Digital Library. The digital images will be browsable and findable through word searching textual descriptors. The university community will be able to view digital images online according to fair use guidelines for nonprofit, academic libraries. They will be available for faculty to incorporate in their course materials and to students for study and research purposes. Outside the university community, not all digital images will be accessible via the Internet; some will only be available at library workstations and campus computer labs. There will be unlimited Internet access to digital images when the university owns the copyright. No one will be charged a fee to view thumbnails, but there will be a charge to have a reproduction made and this will have implications for the electronic billing tactical plan.
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    The Effects of Highlight Color on Immediate Recall in Subjects of Different Cognitive Styles
    Worley, Gary M. (Virginia Tech, 1999-03-02)
    Much of the research investigating color as an image characteristic for enhancing recognition memory has focused on comparisons between black-and-white images and full color images. These comparisons have only recently been extended to differentiate how color impacts learners of different cognitive style and in particular how color influences field dependency. Learners predisposed to field-dependence continually demonstrate a lower capacity than field-independent learners in terms of performance tasks where organizing or restructuring visual information is required. By using color as a mechanism to highlight objects within a visual field, we potentially increase figure-ground separation, which may help facilitate learning for field-dependents in instances where visual information is present. Thus this study undertook to examine the effects highlight color offers as a means of addressing individual learner differences. Undergraduate students were identified on the field-dependence-independence continuum using the Group Embedded Figures Test. Each student then received an instructional lesson on the anatomy of the heart where images were presented in one of four color variations; black-and-white, full realistic color, realistic highlight color, or contrived highlight color. All participants were given two tests following the instructional lesson, one for identification and the other for terminology. Test scores for the two tests indicated no differences for any variation of the color variable. Field-independents were observed to outperform field-dependents in all instances for both tests.
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    The Effects of Virtual Environments on Recall in Participants of Differing Levels of Field Dependence
    Ogle, J. Todd (Virginia Tech, 2002-04-11)
    Virtual environments are visually dominant systems. It seems that individuals" visual perception abilities would have an effect on their performance in a virtual environment. One such visual perception ability that seems a logical fit for study in virtual environments is that of disembedding ability. Disembedding ability is one part of a greater psychological construct known as field dependence. This research investigates how the learner characteristic of field dependence affects learning outcomes in virtual environments In order to examine the effect of virtual environments on recall among learners of differing levels of field dependence, the following specific questions and hypotheses were formed: 1) Does the use of virtual environments affect participants" performance in a task of recall? 2) Do participants of different levels of field dependence perform differently on a task of recall when presented with virtual environments versus static images? 3) Do field-dependent participants score higher on a test of recall when presented with a virtual environment? An experimental design using a sample of Virginia Tech students was employed in this study. The analysis consisted of a 2 X 2 factorial design with main effects for two levels of field dependence (field dependent and field independent), two levels of image representation (virtual environment versus static images), and interaction effects between the two factors. The factorial analysis showed no significant difference in recall test scores for the two treatments. Likewise, there was no significant difference in test scores for field dependent participants who received the virtual-environment treatment versus the static-image treatment. However, a significant interaction existed between field dependence and treatment type, favoring the field-independent participants who received the virtual-environment treatment. It can be concluded from this study that virtual environments have no effect on the recall ability of field-dependent learners. Further research might focus on other individual differences, such as spatial ability, that may have an effect on field-dependent learners" strategies for working in a virtual environment.