Mental Imagery Flashcards
Chapter 6
What two types of general knowledge representation have been suggested to process information once it
has been perceived and has entered the cognitive system? What are their differences?
Perception‐based representations: MENTAL IMAGERY: Mental representations that preserve much of the structure of the original perceptual experience.
Meaning‐based representations: KNOWLEDGE BASED REPRESENTATION: Mental representations that retain the gist of events and discard most of the detail.
In perceptual imagery, are verbal and visual imagery alike? Can you describe the Paivio’s dual code theory and its relevance? Use Santa (1977) experiment to support Paivio’s dual code theory.
Are there separate representations (different codes) for verbal and visual imagery?
Comparison of visual vs. verbal processing:
Santa’s experiment (1977)
Conclusion: Visual and verbal representations are encoding in different way, with their own respective code. Visual code is geometric, spatial; verbal code is lineal, serial.
Is imagined information (perceptual images) represented and processed in similar way as perceptual information is represented and processed? How do the studies in the following topics address this question?
Image scanning
Mental Rotation
Comparison of visual quantities
Mental transformations
Visual illusions
But, what about the processing of reversible figures? Compare Chambers and Reisberg (1985) findings
with Peterson, Kihlstrom, Rose, and Gilsky (1992). What can you conclude?
Answers are on next flashcards
Image Scanning
Mental imagery focus on how perceptual (e.g., visual and verbal) information is represented and processed in our mind in the absence of an external perceptual stimulus.
Mental Imagery ‐ QUESTIONS
Are the processes that apply to (physical) perception apply to mental imagery? Brain scans show similar active areas for mental imagery and actual perceptions.
Mental Rotation/Mental Transformations
Mental Rotation is the process of continuously transforming the orientation of a mental image.
Shepard and Metzler (1971)’s rotation experiments: Mental process are analogous to physical action.
Mental‐rotation research suggests that subjects imagine an object moving in continuous stages as they mentally rotate it .
But, alternative explanation (Carpenter & Just, 1978):
The linear increase in reaction time during comparison of rotated images arose not from the inner rotation of the image, but from a need to make more eye movements between the two pictures the more they were rotated relative to one another (in order to compare their features).
Solution: Cooper & Shepard (1973)’s experiments with one picture alone in which mental rotation that did not involve the comparison of two simultaneously visible pictures (e.g., discriminate normal or backward R.)
Comparison of visual quantities
People judge the visual details of objects (e.g., size) in their mental images as they do with actual perceptions (e.g., with pictures):
The time it takes to discriminate two objects decreases continuously as the difference in size between the two objects increases.
Just as with pictures, subjects experience greater difficulty in judging the relative size of two images that are similar in size.
Visual illusions
Visual images are like visual perception
People can mentally manipulate objects and come to the same conclusions as when the manipulations occur with actual physical objects.
Even with visual illusions.
E.g., Wallace (1984): The Ponzo illusion in imagery.
But, what about the processing of reversible figures? Compare Chambers and Reisberg (1985) findings
with Peterson, Kihlstrom, Rose, and Gilsky (1992). What can you conclude?
But, Chambers and Reisberg (1985) did not find a reversible figure effect with the ambiguous duck‐rabbit figure.
However, Peterson, Kihlstrom, Rose, and Gilsky (1992) were able to get participants to reverse mental images by giving them more explicit instructions.
It seems harder to process an image than the actual stimulus. Given a choice, people will almost always choose to manipulate an actual picture rather than imagine it. Nonetheless, we use visual images as we use actual visual perceptions (similar cognitive processes).
What is a cognitive map?
Mental representations of the location of objects and places in the environment, which help us figure out and remember the spatial structure of our environment.
How do cognitive maps progress from route maps to survey maps?
Cognitive maps progress from route maps to survey maps.
Route maps: Representation of the environment consisting of the paths between locations. The information is declarative (explicit): It can be verbally communicated.
Survey maps (= cognitive map): Representation of the environment consisting of the position of locations in space (integration of route maps; map‐like information).
Is imagined verbal information represented and processed (coded and used) in similar way as perceptual verbal information is represented and processed?
Verbal Information is Represented Acoustically (its own corresponding code).
E.g., existence of acoustic confusions in people’s recall (e.g., Conrad (1964): Participants tend to make errors by substituting letters that sound the same (acoustic confusions; e.g. M and N, V and B), rather than those that look alike (e.g., E and F, P and R).
Conclusion
We can process imagined information in very much the same way we process perceptual information.
Mental representations seem to follow the same code and are processed in similar way as actual perceptual (physical) information.
It seems that the same neural areas involved for perception an mental imagery.
We can mentally manipulate images to practice, plan ahead (make decisions), create new scenarios, solve problems without actual/physical consequences.
