Chapter 10-Visual imagery Pt.1

Question 1

Visual imagery

Answer 1

“Seeing” in the absence of a visual stimulus

Question 2

Mental imagery

Answer 2

Experiencing a sensory impression in the absence of a sensory input

Question 3

Why is visual imagery useful

Answer 3

Provides a way of thinking that adds another dimension to purely verbal techniques

Question 4

Imageless-thought debate

Answer 4

• thought is impossible without image (Aristotle)
• thought is possible without images (people who have great difficulty forming visual images were still capable of thinking-Galton)

Question 5

Imagery and behaviourism

Answer 5

Developed ways to measure behaviour that could be used to infer cognitive processes

-paired-associate learning

Question 6

How does John Watson describe images

Answer 6

As unproven and mythological and therefore not worthy of study

Question 7

Paivio

Answer 7

-memory for pairs of concrete nouns that evoke mental images is better than those which do not evoke mental images

conceptual-peg hypothesis: concrete nouns can create images that other words can “hang from”

Question 8

Shepard and Meltzer

Answer 8

Mental chronometry (rotation)

Participants mentally rotated one object to see if it matched another object

Pair A match (picture plane pairs)
Pair B match (depth pairs)
Pair C do not match

Question 9

Coglab: mental rotation

Answer 9

• Judge whether objects are identical
• half the time they were, other half were mirror objects
• time taken to make a judgement increased as angle of rotation between the objects increased

Question 10

Kosslyn mental scanning

Answer 10

• memorize picture, create mental image of it (boat)
• in image, move from one part of the picture to another
• took longer for participants to mentally move long distances than shorter distances
• like perception, imagery is spatial

Question 11

Lea

Answer 11

Critique to mental scanning

More distractions when scanning longer distances may have increased reaction time

Question 12

Kosslyn et al. Response to lea

Answer 12

• island with 7 locations and 21 trips (no distractions in between)
• it took longer to scan between greater distances
• visual imagery is spatial

Question 13

Pylyshyn

Answer 13

Spatial representation is an epiphenomenon

-accompanies real mechanisms but is not actually a part of it

Proposed that imagery is propositional
-can be represented by abstract symbols, language

Question 14

Imagery debate

Answer 14

Between:

Propositional representation: symbols, language

And

Depictive representation: similar to realistic pictures

Question 15

Tacit knowledge explanation

Answer 15

Proposed by Pylyshyn in response to Kosslyns island experiment

States that results can be explained using real world knowledge unconsciously

People know that in real world it takes longer to travel longer distances, so they stimulate this result in Kosslyns experiment

Question 16

Finke and Pinker (arrow experiment)

Answer 16

Participants judge whether arrow points to dots previously seen

Longer reaction time when greater distance between arrow and dot (as they were “mentally” travelling)

Not instructed to use visual imagery

No time to memorize, no tacit knowledge

Question 17

Relationship between viewing distance and ability to perceive details

Answer 17

Quicker to detect details on larger object

E.g. elephant next to rabbit and then rabbit next to fly

Question 18

Mental walk task

Answer 18

participants had to move toward animal until it field their visual field and then tell distance to the animals

Move closer for small animals than for large animals so that the animal fills your visual field

Therefore if comparing elephant and mouse, your distance to mouse is shorter

Proves that images are spatial like perception

Question 19

Perky (perception influencing imagery)

Answer 19

Mistake actual picture for mental image

Projected a dim image of a banana onto the screen

When participants were asked to report their image of the banana, their description matched the images that Perky was projecting

Question 20

Farrah’s letter visualization experiment (imagery can influence perception)

Answer 20

1. Subject visualizes an H or a T on the screen
2. Two squares flash one after another and the target letter can be in either square
3. Their accuracy was higher when the target letter was the same as the one they had been imagining

Question 21

Imagery and the brain

Answer 21

Imagery neurons respond to both perceiving and imagining an object

• overlap in brain activation
• visual cortex

Question 22

Le Bihan et al

Answer 22

Study measuring brain activity using fMRI

Activity increases to presentation of a visual stimulus

And also increases when subjects are imagining the stimulus

Activity low when there is no actual or imagined stimulus

Question 23

Ganis and coworkers

Answer 23

Complete overlap of brain activation by perception and imagery in front of the brain

Differences near back of brain

Participants would hear the name of an object previously studied. In the imagery condition they had their eyes closed and have to imagine it. In the perception condition, subjects saw a faint picture of the object. Would hear “W” and had to report on whether it is “wider than tall”