Lecture 3- Mental Imagery

Question 1

What is mental imagery?

Answer 1

• picture observer sees in their head
• we can manipulate them
• vividness of imagery differs and some may have none

Question 2

when did the great debate occur?

Answer 2

1973-2003

Question 3

What occurred in Kosslyn, Ball, & Reiser (1978) experment?

Answer 3

• ppt asked to memorise a map
• asked to imagine and the map and were given the name and were given the name of an object to focus on
• they then heard the name of another object and told to scan their image for that object
• RT was measured

Question 4

What did Kosslyn, Ball, &Reiser (1978) find?

Answer 4

the more distance between the objects, the longer it will take to find

Question 5

Outline Kosslyn’s view

Answer 5

• Images have spatial structure

Question 6

What is the pictorial theory?

Answer 6

• Image retrieved from LTM and sits there in an objective manner
• The visual system is used to look at the image
• Images have intrinsic optical and geometric properties

Question 7

Outline the descriptive theory

Answer 7

• It looks like we scan images, but this is an illusion
• We know what it is like to look at an object
• We stimulate that experience when generating an image
• Results are not due to any intrinsic property of the image

Question 8

What does Pylyshyn state about images?

Answer 8

they don’t exist

Question 9

Describe Pylyshyn’s variant of map scanning

Answer 9

• He described an experiment in which no emphasis was placed on scanning
• Replicated Kosslyn’s experiment
• 1 other condition, participants were asked to imagine a light turned on at one location (ship) and then another light turned on at the other location (church), and then asked to press a button

Question 10

what was Pylyshyn’s null hypothesis?

Answer 10

• Images do not sit there objectively.
• If they did, they would adhere better to the laws of nature.
• They would not be so malleable

Question 11

what does Kosslyn state about the cause and effect of an image?

Answer 11

the image appears first and then the answer

Question 12

what does Pylyshyn state about the cause and effect of an image?

Answer 12

• You know the answer first, and then the mental image occurs (it is an effect, not a cause).
• The image is epiphenomenal

Question 14

What is an epiphenomenon?

Answer 14

this is a by-product of something more important

Question 15

What is the mental rotation experiment?

Answer 15

• reaction time task to indicate whether a test object (right) matches the sample object (left)

Question 16

What did the mental rotation experiment find?

Answer 16

the greater the separation the longer RT.

Question 17

What occurs when perception and imagery are equivalent?

Answer 17

smooth pursuit for an imagined movement

Question 18

how can visual neglect occur?

Answer 18

stroke or damage to the right side of the brain

Question 19

What is visual neglect?

Answer 19

he failure to attend to one side of visual space

it is an attentional phenomenon

Question 20

What did Bisiach and Luzzatti (1978) do?

Answer 20

asked neglect patients to imagine a familiar place from a particular perspective and describe what they see

Question 21

What did Bisiach and Luzzatti (1978) find?

Answer 21

The patients ignored one side of their mental images; the same side as the visual/attentional deficit

Question 22

What is visual hemianopia?

Answer 22

cortical blindness on one side

Question 23

What is the visual cortex split into?

Answer 23

• superior and inferior

Question 24

what a happens in the primary visual cortex when an individual imagines a large object?

Answer 24

all of it is active