Chapter 10 Visual Imagery Flashcards
Conceptual peg hypothesis
A hypothesis, associated with Paivio’s dual coding theory, that states that concrete nouns create images that other words can hang on to, which enhances memory for these words.
Degraded pictures task
A task in which a line drawing is degraded by omitting parts of the drawing and obscuring it with a visual noise pattern. The person’s task is to identify the object.
Depictive representation
Corresponds to spatial representation. So-called because a spatial representation can be depicted by a picture.
Epiphenomenon
A phenomenon that accompanies a mechanism but is not actually part of the mechanism. An example of an epiphenomenon is lights that flash on a mainframe computer as it operates.
Imageless thought debate
The debate about whether thought is possible in the absence of images.
Imagery debate
The debate about whether imagery is based on spatial mechanisms, such as those involved in perception, or on propositional mechanisms that are related to language.
Imagery neuron
Neurons in the human brain studied by Kreiman, which fire in the same way when a person sees a picture of an object and when a person creates a visual image of the object.
Mental chronometry
Determining the amount of time needed to carry out a cognitive task.
Mental imagery
Experiencing a sensory impression in the absence of sensory input.
Mental rotation task
A task in which a person judges whether two pictures of three-dimensional geometric objects are pictures of the same object rotated in space or are pictures of two mirror-image objects rotated in space.
Mental scanning
A process of mental imagery in which a person scans a mental image in his or her mind.
Mental walk task
A task used in imagery experiments in which participants are asked to form a mental image of an object and to imagine that they are walking toward this mental image.
Method of loci
A method for remembering things in which the things to be remembered are placed at different locations in a mental image of a spatial layout.
Object imagery
The ability to image visual details, features, or objects.
Paired-associate learning
A learning task in which participants are first presented with pairs of words, then one word of each pair is presented and the task is to recall the other word.
Paper folding task (PFT)
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.
Pegword technique
A method for remembering things in which the things to be remembered are associated with concrete words.
Propositional representation
A representation in which relationships are represented by symbols, as when the words of a language represent objects and the relationships between objects.
Spatial imagery
The ability to image spatial relations.
Spatial representation
A representation in which different parts of an image can be described as corresponding to specific locations in space.
Topographic map
Each point on a visual stimulus causes activity at a specific location on a brain structure, such as the visual cortex, and points next to each other on the stimulus cause activity at points next to each other on the structure.
Unilateral neglect
A problem caused by brain damage, usually to the right parietal lobe, in which the patient ignores objects in the left half of his or her visual field.
Visual imagery
A type of mental imagery involving vision, in which an image is experienced in the absence of a visual stimulus.
Vividness of visual imagery questionnaire (VVIQ)
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.
