Chapter 10 - Visual Imagery

Question 1

What is mental imagery?

Answer 1

-you’re seeing something without an actual visual stimulus

Question 2

Describe the image less thought debate.

Answer 2

-Aristotle said we can’t have thought without being able to bring up imagery
-behaviourists said imagery helps for thought, but you do not need it

Question 3

What did people believe during the cognitive revolution?

Answer 3

-thought exists without imagery, however imagery facilitates cognitive processes

Question 4

Describe the study by Paivio briefly. What did it suggest? (2)

Answer 4

-got people to do a paired-associate learning task with concrete nouns (boat and tree) and abstract nouns (justice and belief) ending with four different pairings of words
-research suggested that people recalled memory better when two concrete nouns paired and lowest memory with two abstract pairs and came up with the conceptual peg hypothesis

Question 5

What is the conceptual peg hypothesis?

Answer 5

-concrete nouns create images that other words can “hang onto” (peg) like a tree in a boat

Question 6

Paivio suggested that we have two distinct coding systems. What are they?

Answer 6

-verbal and imagery

Question 7

What systems do concrete nouns use according to Paivio?

Answer 7

-verbal labels and visual images

Question 8

What systems do abstract words use according to Paivio?

Answer 8

-just verbal labels

Question 9

What are image codes? Example? (2)

Answer 9

-represent information in a visual or pictorial form and are analog representations (capture details similar to how we perceive them in the real world)
-visualizing a map of a city

Question 10

What are symbolic codes? Example? (2)

Answer 10

-verbal or symbolic form that are abstract representations (rely on learned conventions like language)
-thinking about the word dog to represent the concept of a dog

Question 11

What does it mean when we say two codes are linked (symbolic and image codes)?

Answer 11

-when both verbal and visual information are combined they create dual codes that strengthen memory

Question 12

What is easier to remember: symbolic codes or image codes?

Answer 12

-image codes

Question 13

It is easier to remember words (symbolic codes) in _______.

Answer 13

-sequence

Question 14

What did Kosslyn do and what did it suggest?

Answer 14

-had people mentally scan across a map and found that it took longer to scan when they had to scan a greater distance
-concluded visual imagery is spatial

Question 15

Pylyshyn started the imagery debate. What is this debate?

Answer 15

-is imagery based on spatial mechanisms or language mechanisms
-like a check engine light isn’t the actual issue, it is what it represents it is an epiphenomenon

Question 16

Kossyln said that imagery involves spatial or ______ representations.

Answer 16

-depictive

Question 17

Pylyshyn said that Kosslyn’s results can be explained by using real world knowledge unconsciously which is also called ______ knowledge. Give an example.

Answer 17

-tacit
-instead of participants seeing a mental images and scanning it like a picture, Pylyshyn claimed they might simply be reasoning: if the object is farther away in real life it should take me longer to imagine travelling to it

Question 18

Pylyshyn said that the underlying mechanism of imagery is _______.

Answer 18

-propositional
-people store information abstractly as meaning, not mental images and if they reconstruct images this is based off of the proposition

Question 19

What is aphantasia?

Answer 19

-inability to form imagery (not considered a disability, condition or disorder)

Question 20

Describe how the viewing distance affects our reaction time for imagining an elephant vs a rabbit.

Answer 20

-think about elephant vs. Rabbit, rabbit is much smaller and when asked for details on rabbit they are given slower
-suggests mental images are spatial, like what Kosslyn said

Question 21

Briefly describe Perky’s experiment.

Answer 21

-would ask them to visualize a banana and then would very lightly project a banana onto a screen
-participants mistook their imagery for the actual image

Question 22

Farrah repeated Perky’s experiment. Briefly describe this.

Answer 22

-flashed a H or T and then asked if they saw it on the first or second screen
-if the letter that was flashed was different that the other letter they were asked about they were less accurate with identifying which slide they appeared on

Question 23

What did Kreiman’s research show about imagery and perception?

Answer 23

-the same neuron would fire equally for imagery and perception, but not for faces

Question 24

Describe what two areas activated for both perception and imagery?

Answer 24

-frontal lobe
-further back behind the frontal lobe

Question 25

Describe the area of the brain that only got activated during perception and not imagery.

Answer 25

-occipital lobe

Question 26

What is the mental walking task?

Answer 26

-where you imagine going from one point to another on a map

Question 27

Describe what happened to patient M.G.S.

Answer 27

-she was asked to imagine walking towards a horse until the image overflows and when they removed part of her occipital cortex that it reduced the size of the visual field (she couldn’t walk as close to the horse)

Question 28

What happens during unilateral hemi-neglect to imagery?

Answer 28

-they neglect the left side of perception and imagery

Question 29

What happens to imagery for people with acquired colour vision deficiency?

Answer 29

-they lose their ability to have colour in their imagery

Question 30

R.M. Had damage to the occipital and parietal lobe. If you put an object in front of him could he draw it accurately? How about if you asked him to draw it from memory? (2)

Answer 30

-could draw accurate pictures of objects in front of him (perception)
-but not from memory (imagery)

Question 31

Perception is ________ and ____.

Answer 31

-automatic; stable

Question 32

Imagery takes ____ and is ____.

Answer 32

-effort; fragile
-as shown by the duck vs. Rabbit