Exampls of VISUAL CLOSURE TASKS
in the VISUAL MODALITY

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Example #2-- Whose smile does this belong to. Now you will see some smiles of famous personalities (but again, not from my generation, which would have to include George Washington, Wild Bill Hicock, and Mona Lisa). I got these pictures from the Inquirer no less. You do find some intereting materials in there (for instructional purposes I mean)! The quality of several pictures is a little tarnished but that is due probably to my eating while I was reading the paper. How many can you identify (close in on) from the smile alone?

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Answer.--Number 8 and 12 are rarely missed by the students in the on-campus lecture. Number 2 is an old-time comedian; number is 3 an amazing American statesman with a German accent; number 4 is a news commentator with a speech impediment who makes ten times more a year than a speech pathologist; number 6 is a good actor who also makes great salad dressing; number 7 is the queen of the Nile; and number 10 is an Actress turned Princess. Number 9, of course, is one of our Presidents (not George Washington). By the way, if you want to see the full pictures click in on the Next Demo.

Example #3-- These are the personalities with the smiles. These pictures are what you were tring to close in on in the above demonstration..

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Answer--Again, this is a good model for making materials. Pictures from newpapers, magazines, particularly sports and/or movie magazines can be a source of a lot of fun as closure tasks. One teacher I know used Wrestling Magazines because of the high use of adjectives. In case you couldn't read the names, it was Betty Ford, Bob Hope, Henry Kissinger, Barbara Walters, Jackie Onassis, Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, Reobert Redford, President Ford, Grace Kelly, Princess Caroline and Sammy Davis Jr. The next demo came from a regular newspaper.

Example #4-- Whats wrong with these pictures? These next two pictures demonstrate the automaticity of the closure process. Take a look at them.

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Answer--What's wrong with those pictures is that there are significant junks missing from the drawing. Look for exampe at the right side of the face of the top figure. The line is totally missing. Likewise for the left side of the face and neck of the figure below...and part of her arm too. But we never typically notice these things. Instead, our system automatically fills in the lines. So strong is the process that I sometimes think there really is a faint line for the face, but no...it's only the peceptual closure process. We are going to switch our focus now and look at some verbal closure tasks.

Example #5-- What are these words. They are readable, but it takes a little energy and time. The faster you try to read them, the more difficult it becomes.

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Answer--If you have several people reading the list, you may get several different closures on the same word. This is a good example of the Specific Level of Awareness, where we recognize that they are words, but make wrong guesses as to what words they are. Incidentally the words are, as I'm sure you've guessed: time, starts, could, clear, from, there, happy, work, cloud, under, orange, bought, better, follow, corn, mark, across, question, right, some, middle and shake.

In the next example, the individual letters are all whole, but the letters are scattered in a matrix of letters. You must use closure to pull the individual letters together in order to recognize target words.

Example #6--Pulling out selected words. Here is a matrix of letters. You are given specific words to search for and you will have to use closure skills to pull the letters together. In this excercise, direction is not a constraint. Try it and see how you do.

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Answer--You probably are wondering how this differs from an embedded figure ground task. It really doesn't. It requires that skill too. But given good figure ground capability, the next task is to close in on the letters to make the word(s). Notice, that all this perceptual processing takes time, even for us who have normal perceptual abilities. The time factor is one veriable we tend to overlook in the perceptual process.

The next demo to me, is a little harder because they don't give us the target word. You have to be familiar with the figures.

Example #7-- Fill in the missing vowels. Here are a list of words made up only of consonants. You have to close in on the words by filling in the vowels. Here again, you will note that not only natural closure ability but also past experiences with the names of the characters is essential to do the task.

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Answer--My closure skills are okay but I am not familiar with these characters. I think the first one is Daredevil, and then I'm out of the running. I hope you did better.

The last four pictures are non verbal. There intent will be to make you more conscious of the closure process...of the time it takes to complete the process...and the frustration one might experience when he/she can't achieve closure. The result, of course is confusion and a lack of understanding. Let's try the first one which is relatively easy.

Example #8-- Bringing it all together. In this demo, you may, for just a moment, first see just some splotches. Then like a "clap." it will come together and a meaningful whole will emerge.

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Answer--Yes, it was a Scottie Dog. This is the basic idea. Closure is bringing meaningless fragments into a meaningful whole.

The next four pictures are similar, but will be more challanging. You can see how this type of exercise could be structured in a series from simple to complex. Notice, that they will take time to decode...and you probably won't get them all, but give it a try..keeping in mind that the need for time, frequent confusion and and a high rate of failure are experiences that are all to familiar to a child or adult who has perceptual processing problems.

Example #9-- What in the world are they? Can you close in on the essence of these pictures without any hints?

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Answer--They kind of make your head spin. Some, hopefully just leaped out at you...perhaps #1, the lady with the hat and #3 the cowboy on a horse. Numbe 2, which looks to me like a Russian Kosak may be a little harder to pull to gether, and perhaps also the couple dancing in #4. If these hints helped you to see them now, remember this when we talk about the contribution of expectancies (a learning factor) in the perceptual process.

If you still cant see them all, however, the next picture will give you additional assistancve.

Example #10--Oh, thats what they are! After you take a look that these pictures, go back to #9 and see if you can close in on the figures.

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Answer--These were just practice excercises. The next one is for real!. If you can pick out what it is without any expectations, you will reap great rewards. If you fail, don't take any risks, like a trip on any means of transporation named the Titanic.

Example #11-- Describe this picture. You are taking a look at it cold (without any expectancies). It took me much time and many hints to recognize what it is. Let's see how you do.

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Answer--If you saw the face of Christ, you are probably in good standing with those in a higher place. If not, say three prayers and look again. It might help if you step back from the computer screen too. There is the face of a bearded man, looking straight at you. Half of his face is in shadow so that you cant see most of the features. Your mind will put in some, however, as part of the closure process. If you still can't see it, print it out and tape it to the wall and look at it frequently. One of these times it will leap out at you!

But if you can't get it we will give you one more chance to redeme yourself with the next and last closure picture. We will even give you some expectation as to what it is--an animal that says, "MOO" and gives milk (at $2.50 a half gallon); and is standing sideways looking straight at you. Good luck.

Example #12-- "Holy Cow!" That, of course, is an expletive, and not a religious description of this next picture. It is, however, the toughest one in this collection. The cow in the picture has a long face looking directly at you on the left side of the frame.

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Answer--If you can't see the cow, you have a lot of company. It took me a long time to see it and then each time I looked at the picture subsequently the closure process still took longer than it should!.

This concludes our closure demonstration. I hope you experienced the culmination of the closure process--that all-of-a-sudden coming together of the picture. But also I hope you became aware of the time and energy expenditure that needed to be invested in the process; and I hoped you experienced some failures so that you can relate to the frustration, confusions and incorrect guesses that those with perceptual problem have...or just plain very young children whose perceptual processes are still developing.

Feel free to use your browser back-key or the scroll bar to revisit any of the pictures, before you return to the main lesson.

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