chapter 11 visual knowledge Flashcards
What technique did Galton use to study mental images and what is the main problem with this technique?
his technique was to get people to look within (introspect) and describe their image of a picture in their mind, he then rated their image for vividness. the participants describe their image much like a picture, they were viewing their image from a position and a certain distance, and could describe colours, textures etc. however some reported very detailed accounts and others just a sketchy images or non at all, insisting in no way were they ‘seeing the scenes’-indicating some people visualise and others do not.
Limitation- their is a translation step, involved whenever people translate their subjective inner experience into a verbal report, their is no ganrantee that everyone translates in the same way.
What do chronometric studies of visual imagery refer to?
the participants are required to do something with their images, usually make a judgement based on their image. researches can then examine how fast people are in making these judgements, these cam then be measured, time measured usually (chronometric)
Describe Kosslyn’s (1976) results and what they tell us about visual imagery
participants were asked answer yes or no to questions to images, to see if they were creating image of a description, if it were pictorially prominent features, which would imply a depictive mode of representation, or is it the verbally prominent one , implying a descriptive mode. the study found that people have the option of thinking about cats (whatever) with or without imagery, as the mode of representation changes, so does the pattern of information.
Describe Kosslyn et al.’s (1978) image-scanning experiment; what does this tell us about visual imagery?
that participant were asked to memorise a map with particular land mask on it, they were then asked to dram a line from one land mark to another and indicate to the experimenter when they started and when they reached the land mark, revealing that participants scan across their images at a constant rate, so doubling the scanning distance double the time required for the scan. similar thing happens when people have to zoom it or out.
so… the image preserves the spatial layout of the represented scene and, therefor rather directly represents the geometry of the scene. in this was images depict the scene rather then describing it, thus, they are much more similar to pictures or maps then they are to descriptions.
Describe Shepard’s mental rotation task and what the results of this task tell us about visual imagery
participants were given shapes that were rotated differently and had to decide whether they were the same or different shapes. Again the more rotation that was required to match the two shapes together the longer it took, therefore imagined movement resembles actual movement.
Why can we discount the demand character of the experiments as a plausible explanation for the results?
thought that participant know that in real life it takes more time to travel longer distance, therefore they could be just recreating that “normal” pattern in their mind. But the demand charactor; the experimenter just asked me to scan the long way, therefore it will take longer because it takes longer in real life, -participants generally want to be helpful and and do what they can to give experimenter “good data” = demand character this has been accounted in studies were asked participants to make judgements about spatial layout but have taken care never to mention that imagery might be relevant to the task. no idea of ‘mental travel’ was created and therefore the participants wouldnt of been trying to do this
Describe the relationship between imagining and perceiving
there is some overlap between imagining and perceiving, there are mental processes that are involved in both activities. forming a visual image interferes with perceiving and forming an auditory image interferes with hearing. participants were visualizing one thing while perceiving something entirely different
Describe the evidence for this relationship from Segal and Fusella’s experiments
- perception was facilitated if the participant was pre-setup with visualizing the stimulus they were about to perceive.
- that visual image interferes with seeing and auditory image interferes with hearing.
- visualizing and perceiving draw on simular mechanisms, so that one of these activities can prime the other
Describe the similarity in brain areas that are activated when people are imagining vs perceiving
the overlap of imaging and perceiving is also clear in biological evidence. Areas in the occipital lobe are activated when you examining a visual stimulus and the same areas are activated when your visualizing a stimulus before the “eyes mind”, an area in the occipital lobes is also used for detecting movement, the same area is activated when imagining movement patterns.
What happens when TMS or brain damage disrupts the visual system?
TMS used to interfere with V1 = causes problems with vision, but also causes parallel problems in visual imagery.
- people who cannot see colour can also not visualize colour (brain damage)
- brain damage (neglet syndrome) only see half of everything, also only visualize half.
What is spatial imagery and how do we know that it is different from visual imagery?
the blind were getting same result as the seeing people, in the test the time taken to scan a across an image (sculpture) was the same the more distance then longer the time. And same with the rotation experiments.
It is evident then that the blind people were using “spatial imagery” might be represented in the mind in terms of a series of movements so that its body imagery or motion imagery rather then visual imagery.
-seeing people can use either
-confirmed in studies using FMRI and brain damage patients with impaired occipital lobe (image issues) but spatical tasks are fine.
How does vivid imagery impact our lives?
“visual imaginers” are more likely succeed in the arts, while people that are more spatial are better at engineering.
also play a role in Autobiographical memories with “non-images” less likely to feel as though they can relive their memories.
What are aphantasia and eidetic imagery?
eidetic imagery (photographic) they can truly describe an image as if they were seeing it. -sometimes found in autistic people
How are our mental images and visual images different from pictures?
mental images are not actually picture like, they can represent 3 dimensional figures, so they may be more like mental sculptures then mental pictures.
A picture such as (3 dimensional cube) can be view from top or bottom, the image is neutral with regard to interpretation, however your perception of the cube is not neutral, you only perceive it one way at any moment in time as having one arrangement of depth another. This means it goes beyond the information given by specifying a configuration in depth.
so…. your representations of stimuli are in some ways similar to pictures, but in other ways different.
people dont see a picture in their mental image even if it is a visual image, images are the same as percepts, entirely unambiguous and resistant to reinterpretation.
How are images stored in memory and how do we form an image when trying to remember it?
from research its suggested that pictures are not represented in memory, like nodes that are whole pictures and activated. instead images seem to be stored in memory piece by piece, to form an image you first have to activate the nodes specifying the ‘image frame’ which depicts the forms global shape then elaborations can be added to this frame if you wish to create a full and detailed image. more detailed images take more time.
instruction in an image file in your LTM, files contain a set of instructions or a “recipe” for creating an image, purposing that visual information is represented in long-term memory in a way that isn`t itself visual, instead, visual information mat be represented in long-term memory via propositions that provide a “recipe” to be used when creating an image.
