Chapter 10

Question 1

visual imagery

Answer 1

• seeing in the absence of a visual stimulus
• easier to remember words with high imagery potential

Question 2

mental imagery

Answer 2

experiencing a sensory impression in the absence of sensory input

Question 3

imagery potential

Answer 3

• ease of generating an image
• high imagery potential
• low imagery potential
• recall best for high-imagery paired-associates

Question 4

mental chronometry

Answer 4

• infer cognitive processes by measuring the time it takes to complete a cognitive task

Question 5

shepard and metzler - 1971 (mental chronometry)

Answer 5

• measured the time to mentally rotate objects to make a verification judgment (match/no match)
• one of the first to apply quantitative methods to the study of imagery and to suggest that imagery and perception may share the same mechanisms

Question 6

early ideas about imagery

Answer 6

• Wundt proposed that images were one of the three basic elements of consciousness, along with sensations and feelings
• Francis Galton’s (1883) observed that people who had great difficulty forming visual images were still quite capable of thinking
• Behaviorists branded the study of imagery as unproductive because visual images are invisible to everyone except the person experiencing them

Question 7

imageless thought debate

Answer 7

the debate about whether thought is possible in the absence of images

Question 8

conceptual peg hypothesis

Answer 8

• that states that concrete nouns create images that other words can hang on to, which enhances memory for these words
• associated with Paivios dual coding theory

Question 9

mental scanning

Answer 9

scan a mental image with the mind

Question 10

scanning - Klosslyn and Pomerantz

Answer 10

visual scanning time for a picture is the same for an image of that picture

Question 11

images - Klosslyn

Answer 11

• faster to answer questions about an image when one imagines that it takes up most of their visual field
• e.g. faster to answer questions about the elephant when it’s shown next to a rabbit

Question 12

perky (1910)

Answer 12

mistake dimly projected image as their mental image

Question 13

farah (1985)

Answer 13

participants are faster to detect target location when the target and mental image matched

Question 14

mental walk task

Answer 14

form a mental image of an object and to imagine that you are walking toward this mental image

Question 15

imagery debate

Answer 15

whether imagery is based on spatial mechanisms, such as those involved in perception, or on propositional mechanisms that are related to language

Question 16

spatial representation

Answer 16

different parts of an image can be described as corresponding to specific locations in space

Question 17

depictive representations

Answer 17

• corresponds to spatial representation
• is so-called because a spatial representation can be depicted by a picture

Question 18

epiphenomenon

Answer 18

• a phenomenon that accompanies a mechanism but is not actually part of the mechanism
• e.g. is lights that flash on a mainframe computer as it operates

Question 19

proposition representations

Answer 19

relationships are represented by symbols

Question 20

imagery neurons

Answer 20

• neurons in the visual cortex that fires when perceiving or imagining a specific object
• demonstrates a possible physiological mechanism for imagery
• these neurons respond in the same way to perceiving an object and to imagining it

Question 21

le bihan et al., (1993)

Answer 21

• fMRI recordings reveal both perception and imagery activate the visual cortex
• asking participants to think about questions that involved imagery generated a greater response in the visual cortex than asking nonimagery questions

Question 22

topographic map

Answer 22

indicates that viewing small objects activates the back of the visual cortex whereas larger objects result in a spread of activity toward the front of the visual cortex

Question 23

do imagery and perceptions share the same mechanisms

Answer 23

• imagery and perception reveal similar activity in the frontal lobe
• ablation of the visual cortex results in a decrease in image size
• difficulty with perception is associated with difficulty with creating images
• those with unilateral neglect will ignore objects in one half of the visual field

Question 24

do imagery and perceptions have different mechanisms

Answer 24

• perception is automatic and stable
• imagery takes effort and is fragile
• difficult to switch perceptions of an ambiguous image than picture

Question 25

chalmers and reisberg (1985)

Answer 25

• difficult to switch perceptions of a mental image of an ambiguous figure
• e.g. duck or rabbit image

Question 26

johnson and johnson (2014) - multivoxel pattern analysis

Answer 26

• used this procedure to study the relation between imagery and perception by training a classifier by presenting four different kinds of scenes—beach, desert, field, or house
• results showed the classifier predicted the correct picture on 63 percent of the trials, which is above chance accuracy

Question 27

transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)

Answer 27

a procedure in which magnetic pulses are applied to the skull in order to temporarily disrupt the functioning of part of the brain

Question 28

TMS - Klosslyn (1999)

Answer 28

• presented transcranial magnetic stimulation to the visual cortex while participants were carrying out either a perception task or an imagery task
• the results indicated that stimulation caused participants to respond more slowly, and that this slowing effect occurred both for perception and for imagery
• it was concluded that brain activity in the visual cortex plays a causal role in both perception and imagery

Question 29

patient M.G.S. case study

Answer 29

• about to have part of her right occipital lobe removed as treatment for a severe case of epilepsy
• before the procedure M.G.S. performed the mental walk task that we described earlier and she felt she was about 15 feet from an imaginary horse before its image overflowed
• this was repeated after her right occipital lobe had been removed, the distance increased to 35 feet
• removing part of the visual cortex reduced the size of her field of view
• supports the idea that the visual cortex is important for imagery

Question 30

role of parietal lobe in imagery

Answer 30

• unilateral neglect: the patient ignores objects in one half of the visual field
• supports the idea that mental imagery and perception share physiological mechanisms

Question 31

method of loci

Answer 31

• mnemonic involving mental image of a spatial layout
• a method in which things to be remembered are placed at different locations in a mental image of a spatial layout

Question 32

pegboard technique

Answer 32

• mental image of objects associated with a concrete word
• e.g. one–bun; two–shoe; three–tree; four–door; five–hive; six–sticks; seven–heaven; eight–gate; nine–mine; ten–hen

Question 33

spatial imagery

Answer 33

the ability to image spatial relations

Question 34

object imagery

Answer 34

the ability to image visual details, features, or objects

Question 35

paper folding test (PFT)

Answer 35

• a test in which a piece of paper is folded and then pierced by a pencil to create a hole
• the task is to determine, from a number of alternatives, where the holes will be on the unfolded piece of paper
• designed to measure spatial imagery

Question 36

vividness of visual imagery questionnaire

Answer 36

• a test in which people are asked to rate the vividness of mental images they create
• this test is designed to measure object imagery ability
• e.g. participants rated, on a 5-point scale, the vividness of mental images they were asked to create

Question 37

degraded pictures task

Answer 37

• a task in which a line drawing is degraded by omitting parts of the drawing and obscuring it with a visual noise pattern
• the persons task is to identify the object