ch. 10 Flashcards
(24 cards)
what is mental imagery?
ability to recreate the sensory world and experiences in the absence of physical stimuli
what is visual imagery?
“seeing” pictures in the absence of visual stimuli
what is imagination?
ability of the mind to be creative by generating sensory experiences, ideas, or concepts, without their physical presence
what is the breakfast table task?
thinking of an object (breakfast table from this morning) and considering the picture:
1. illumination: is it clear or dim
2. definition: are all objects well defined at the same time?
3. colouring: are the colours of the objects quite distinct and natural?
what is the paired associate learning task?
the memory for words that evoke mental images is better than for those that do not
what is the conceptual peg hypothesis?
concrete nouns create images that other words can hang on to.
what is mental scanning?
a process of mental imagery in which a person scans a mental image in their mind (walking around to get the entire picture). it took participants longer to mentally move long distances than shorter distances and for them to make a decision about wether the object was there or not
(ex. walking around a boat)
what is a cognitive representation?
refers to the idea that our cognition has some type of format (ex. visual information can be stored digitally as pixels, as drawings on paper, etc)
what was pylyshyns debate?
that the mechanism underlying imagery involves propositional representations
“the cat is under the table” (propositional), showing a photo of a cat under a table (spatial)
what is size of visual field?
the relationship between viewing distance and the ability to perceive details, its quicker to detect details on a larger object
what was cheves perky?
a. participants either visualize “h” or “t” on the screen
b. to squares flash one after the other on the same screen, the target letter can be in either the first or second square
was the test letter flashed first or second?
accuracy was better when the letter in b. was the same as the one imagined in a.
what are imagery neurons?
neurons in the human brain that fire in the same way when a person sees a picture of an object and when a person creates a visual image of the object
what is the topographic map?
small objects cause activity in the back of the visual cortex, while large objects cause activity to spread out towards the front of the visual cortex
what is multivoxel pattern analysis?
a classifier presents four different scenes to a person in an MRI scanner, and the classifier had to predict what the person was perceiving or imagining from two different possibilities
what is transcranial magnetic stimulation?
the use of magnetic pulses to stimulate or inhibit specific brain regions and if behaviour is disrupted, the deactivated part of the brain is causing the behaviour
what is unilateral neglect?
a problem due to brain damage usually in the right parietal lobe that causes the patient to ignore objects in the left half of their visual field
who is patient R.M.?
had damage to their occipital and parietal lobes, could draw accurate pictures of objects infront of them, could not draw pictures of objects from memory, had trouble verifying sentences requiring imagery, perception intact but imagery impaired
who is patient C.K.?
had visual agnosia, lacked the ability to recognize objects including their own drawings, could draw objects in great detail from memory, perception impaired but imagery intact
what types of processes are perception and imagery?
perception: bottom up processing
imagery: top down processing
how do perception and imagery have differences in experience?
perception is automatic and stable while imagery takes effort and is fragile
how could visual imagery enhance memory
first by repeating the words paired together, then imagining them interacting. imagining the words together has greater recall
what is the method of loci?
using familiar locations to recall information (ex. placing to-be-remember objects in your home)
what is the pegword technique?
associate terms to be remembered with concrete words
pair each item with a pegword and then create a vivid image of items to be remembered with the object represented by the word
