Image Quiz: Using Principles of Cognitive Psychology to Teach Visual Expertise

Image Quiz is a cross-platform set of computer programs designed to help users efficiently become visual experts. Unlike novices, visual experts are able to quickly recognize patterns. This allows chess masters to recognize chess configurations and botanists to identify plants from a glimpse out the window of a moving vehicle. The Image Quiz programs help students rapidly achieve this mastery by adapting techniques from cognitive psychology. They are designed to promote holistic processing, the visual processing mode used by experts. This report focuses on the principles behind the Image Quiz programs, and presents some of their major features. The programs can be used in any discipline that depends on visual information. This includes STEM disciplines like chemistry and mathematics.