7. Imagery

Question 1

Paivio’s Dual-Coding Theory

Answer 1

The theory that information can be encoded in two ways: verbally and non-verbally.

He thinks there are two things: Logogens and imagens.

Logogens contain the information regarding our use of a word. We have to access that information sequentially.

Imagens contain the information that allows to generate the mental image. With them, we have an image and we can zoom in on particular aspects as we desire.

He believed if something can be encoded using both, then it’ll stick better in our brain.

Question 2

Imagery (Paivio’s sense)

Answer 2

The link between logogens and imagens. The ease to which a logogen can elicit an imagen?

e.g. “table” has strong imagery, vs “purpose”, an abstract term.

Question 3

Concreteness

Answer 3

The link between logogens and the five senses. Perhaps a superordinate form of imagery?

Question 4

Word-pairing studies

Answer 4

Paivio did an early study, where he got participants to memorize word pairs. He noted that learning was best for concrete/concrete , followed by concrete/abstract, abstract/concrete, etc etc.

His theory was that concrete words can be dually-encoded, while abstract words can only be encoded using logogens.