Abstract
The focus of interest of this study is whether a-priori instructions would help the participants to construct a viewpoint independent representation of a dynamic scene. Garsoffky, Schwan & Hesse (2002) showed, that the recognition of dynamic sequences is viewpoint dependent. Salomon & Perkins (1989) argued that by means of cognitive elaborations, learners can intentionally develop an abstract representation of a given content. If there's a connection between abstract representations and viewpoint independency, than it seems probable, that more elaborations induce a more viewpoint independent representation. In this study ball-races were used as stimulus material: the scenes consisted of four balls with different kinds of movement characteristics. Different types of a-priori instructions were used: (1) no instruction (no elaboration), (2) the participants were instructed to pay attention to the colors of the balls (medium elaboration) and (3) they have to focus on the overtakes of the balls (deep elaboration). After viewing the film subjects had to decide in a recognition test whether a shown video still (different viewpoints at different points of time) was part of the seen event or not. In the first condition a viewpoint dependency effect should appear whereas in the third condition a viewpoint independent mental representation was expected. While the analysis of the hit rate showed a significant viewpoint dependency effect but no significant interaction with the instructions, the false-alarm rate showed a significant main effect for the instruction. The participants produced more false-alarms in condition 2 (colors) than in 3 (overtakes), in condition 1 (no instruction) the fewest false-alarm rate was measured. Overall the findings suggest, that instead of a single viewpoint independent representation it seems reasonable, that the participants in condition 2 and 3 have two representations one visuo-spatial and one which is more abstract.