10-Imagery&Foresight Flashcards

1
Q

According to the Oxford dictionary, what is the mind?

A

The element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world & their experiences, to think & to feel

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2
Q

Representations are ABOUT something; they have a referent & a sense. Describe the two types of representation

A

Analogue - have a one to one representation (e.g. analogue clock – each time a second passes the arm moves; image on retina maps one to one with outside world); & Propositional/allegorical - more arbitrary (e.g. digital clock - difference between 3 & 4 is arbitrary)

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3
Q

Why is imagery important?

A

It frees us from the present; frees us from reality; allows us to practice without moving; can create mental maps (e.g. traverse a path we’ve never walked before; orient ourselves)

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4
Q

Describe Paivio’s dual coding hypothesis;

According to him, why are concrete words remembered better than abstract words?

A

Information is represented in a verbal & an imaginal (visual) code; it might be coded or stored in either or both systems;
Concrete words can be stored in both codes while abstract words may only be stored in verbal code

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5
Q

Describe the Conceptual-Propositional hypothesis as proposed by Anderson & Bower;
What does this suggest?

A

When giving participants predicate (or propositional) calculus (relationship {subject, object}; e.g. kissed {boy, girl}), then they have to recognise them in a bigger list, they’re more likely to store & retrieve the general gist, rather than an analogue recording of the word order;
Analogue storage is beyond our capacity; storage is likely to be in a propositional format

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6
Q

Describe the evidence supporting propositional effects on mental imagery, as found in the barbells/spectacles experiment

A

Participants were presented with an image (circle-line-circle) paired with a word (barbells/spectacles); when paired with spectacle, they were more likely to pick the target with the shorter bridge (if just the image was stored they’d choose the longer target)

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7
Q

When something is represented in an image, it’s more concrete & specific than propositional. Describe 3 types of evidence supporting analogue effects on mental imagery

A

Transformation (can’t be explained propositionally); size effect (when imagining a frog next to an elephant, it takes longer to answer due to size of the elephant); & image scanning (there’s a linear relationship between distance on a real map & reaction time to imagine the distance)

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8
Q

Explain the Functional Equivalence hypothesis by Shepard & Kosslyn

A

Mental imagery is not abstract propositional but is also not a simple analogue representation of the external world; relationship between objects in imagery are functionally equivalent to the relationships these objects have in the real world; perception & imagery use the same cognitive mechanisms (e.g. mental rotation)

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9
Q

What’s the hypothesis regarding the mental rotation experiment?;
What does this suggest?

A

There is a linear increase in reaction time (choosing same or different) the more the object is rotated;
Rotation of the object is imagined (analogue representation)

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10
Q

Propositional accounts continue to question the evidence for functional equivalence. What do they suggest the effects may be explained by?

A

Demand characteristics (participants respond in the way they think the experimenter wants them to); but baboons also show the rotation effect – just faster

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11
Q

Rather than forming a representation of an object & then rotating it, what may we actually do?

A

Form a representation of a rotating object

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12
Q

Why do mental images behave as physical objects?

A

Because their evolutionary function is to represent the physical world

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13
Q

Researchers have questioned whether imagery uses the same cognitive resources as visual perception. What did Corballis & McClaren (1982) find in regards to interference?

A

Rotation aftereffects; if aftereffects spin in the same direction, RT is faster (accelerates) & is slower if the opposite way (perceptual effect influences how you do the mental task)

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14
Q

Segal & Fuscella (1970) had participants perform an auditory detection task (did a tone occur?) & visual detection task (did a line occur?), then performed these tasks whilst imagining a phone ringing or a visual scene. What did they find?

A

Many errors when imagining things in the same modality (e.g. vis-vis/aud-aud); drawing on the same resources interferes with optimum performance; no interference when modalities were crossed (e.g. vis-aud)

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15
Q

Dreams are generally reported as visual & kinesthetic experiences rather than auditory, tactile or olfactory. According to Symons’ interference hypothesis, why could this be?

A

We can afford visual hallucinations because our eyes are closed & it’s dark; but alarm cries, smell of predators or the panicky grasp of an infant, remain important cues that require unimpaired vigilance of the senses of hearing, smell & touch during sleep

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16
Q

When Bisiach & Luzzatti had patients with visual neglect syndrome (with damage to right parietal lobe) describe or imagine the Piazza, what did they find?

A

Neglect/impairment also in imaginary space (could also only imagine details on the left & ignored the other side)

17
Q

Farah tested patients before & after an occipital lobectomy, where they had them imagine a horse & estimate the distance it had to be to fill the visual field. What occurred?

A

They perceived a reduced image size after the operation in both vision & imagery (tunnel imagery); imaginary space was reduced

18
Q

In PET scans by Goldenberg et al. (1990), which brain areas were found to show activation when engaging in imagery?

A

Occipital & temporal parietal activation; primary visual & higher memory areas

19
Q

Kosslyn et al. (1995) found greater activation in the visual cortex when what?;
Why could this be?

A

Imagining rather than perceiving;
Top-down processing more demanding than bottom-up image creation (takes more effort to create a visual image rather than being a recipient in visual perception; corresponds with individual differences)

20
Q

ERP results by Farah & Peronnet (1989) revealed that subjects who claim to have vivid imagery showed what?

A

Stronger occipital ERP effects

21
Q

Georgopoulos took single cell recordings of directional cells in the motor cortex of a monkey, who was trained to point his arm at a light & depending on where it points, neurons reflected the direction. In a second experiment, he had to point 90 degrees to the right of the light. What was found?

A

Cellular directional vector rotation was equivalent to mental rotation data; neurological correspondence to rotation in the mind

22
Q

What’s “Mentalese”?

A

The language of the mind; thinking can be in verbal, imaginal & conceptual-propositional form

23
Q

What notion does neurocognitive studies lend further support in regards to imagery & perception?

A

That they engage some of the same cognitive resources & show some functional equivalence

24
Q

What evidence has been found in the field of cognitive neuroscience, contributing to imagery research?

A

The modality specific visual nature of mental imagery (damage to visual areas tend to result in loss of the same properties in imagery; imagery of a variety of imagery tasks shows activation in the visual cortex); neuronal functional equivalence (neuronal population vector corresponds to mental rotation); imagery is different from perception (involves more activation; additional activation in memory areas)

25
Q

What’s an advantage of imagery & foresight?

A

Our own private time machine – we can relive past events (episodic memory) & future events (episodic foresight); we can reflect on these (evaluate their likelihood & desirability) & draw conclusions (prepare for them & shape the future)

26
Q

Mental time travel into the past & future share close links in the mind & brain, & may be two sides of the same cognitive coin. Describe some of these commonalities

A

Similar: brain activation (medial temporal & medial prefrontal lobe); psychological characteristics (more temporally distant events are more abstract & de-contextualised); impairment (amnesic patients have same problems with imagining future events; depressed & schizophrenic patients show parallel impairments with past & future); development (accurately reporting events from yesterday & tomorrow co-emerges between age 3-4; decline with advanced age of mental time travel in both directions)

27
Q

Memory enables simulation of potential future events. Give two examples

A

Extrapolation – past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour; vocabulary for re-combination – we can reassemble basic elements (actors, acts & objects) into novel scenarios

28
Q

What’s the price of the flexibility we need to construct scenarios of the future?;
What could this possibly explain?

A

When we reconstruct past events, we may at times do so creatively rather than faithfully (we store the basic gist but reconstruct things that didn’t happen);
Characteristic errors of episodic memory; episodic memory may be an adaptive design feature of our foresight system

29
Q

How did Clayton & Dickinson seem to discover episodic-like memory in scrub jays?;
Although they preferred worms over nuts, what happened when they were cached a long time ago?

A

They seemed to recover food caches according to what was stored (worms or nuts), where they were stored (left or right side of tray) & when (cached 4 hrs ago or 120 hours ago);
They’d search for nuts instead, as worms decay & become unpalatable

30
Q

The idea of mental time travel in animals has received some skepticism. What have Suddendorf, Busby & Corballis questioned?

A

Whether birds just know what is where & whether it’s still good to eat (semantic rather than episodic memory); could also be associative learning linking the what & where, & a use-by-date attached to this representation (if palatable, then reinforced, if rotten they get punished); learnt association between strength of memory & outcome; & double dissociation (knowing what, where & when does not equal mental time travel)

31
Q

We can ask humans whether they remember or merely know, but not with animals as it’s not readily demonstrable without language. What’s an alternative study approach according to Suddendorf & Corballis?

A

Study foresight – mental time travel into the future should be evident in flexible future-directed behaviour; do animals imagine the remote future & act prudently as a result? (if so, this shows evidence of mental foresight)

32
Q

Being prepared matters. Give three examples of innate predispositions that allow animals to deal with or adapt to long-term regularities (which could be considered foresight);
What’s another way animals prepare for the future?

A

Coli (bacteria) prepare by activating genes necessary to digest maltose, while they’re still in a lactose rich environment; nest building for future breeding; hibernation for recurring food shortage;
Individual learning – CS predicts the arrival of US (but this is stimulus bound & only predicts the very near future; there are some longer term versions for specific domains, such as food aversion & caching in scrub jays)

33
Q

Although there are increasing research efforts to demonstrate some competence of mental time travel in animals, what has not yet been found?

A

Evidence for domain general, flexible acts to secure remote future benefits

34
Q

What good is foresight?

A

We can imagine virtually any potential future scenario (brain scanning studies suggest it’s what we do when we are “idle”); allows us to act now to secure future advantages (from shopping to planning retirement; future-directed action independent of current stimuli or drive; coordinating long-term goals, complex plans & strategies); human survival heavily depends on foresight