Chapter 8: Visual Imagery & Spatial Cognition

Question 1

Mnemonics

Answer 1

Various techniques used to increase chances of remembering
Many but not all use imagery

Question 2

Mnemonic Methods

Answer 2

Method of loci
Interacting images
Pegwords
Ordered cues
Etc.

Question 3

Method of Loci

Answer 3

Requires learner to imagine a series of places (locations) that have some sort of order
Imagine the items you have to remember in those locations
Using visualization to recall what is needed (walk the same path over again in your mind)
Can recall up to 38 of 40 words after one presentation

Question 4

Principles Improving Method of Loci

Answer 4

Cues must be memory images of geographic locations
Use interactive images to link the item and its cue location
If you study the items more than once, the same cue location should be used for a given memory item

Question 5

Interacting Images

Answer 5

Recall of concrete nouns on a list improved when participants were told to form images of the words
For images to be maximally effective in paired associates, participants should try to form images that interact (e.g. a goat smoking a pipe, no two separating)
Bizarreness has no effect on recall

Question 6

Pegword method

Answer 6

Picturing items with another set of ordered cues, pegging them to the cue
Cues are not locations but are nouns that come from a memorized rhyming list
Participant needs to picture the first item interacting with a bun, second with a shoe, third with a tree
10 or less items

Question 7

Memory techniques Not Including Visual Imagery

Answer 7

Recoding material to be recalled
Adding extra words or sentences to mediate or go between memory and material
E.G. every good boy deserves fudge
Categorization and organization of material also improve recall

Question 8

Dual Coding Hypothesis

Answer 8

Long term memory contains two distinct coding systems for representing info to be stored
Verbal: containing info about an item’s abstract, linguistic meaning
Imagery: mental pictures of some sort that represent what the item looks like

Question 9

Relational-Organizational Hypothesis

Answer 9

Imagery improves memory because imagery produces more associations between the items to be recalled
Forming an image requires a link between the info to be remembered and other information

Question 10

Example of Dual Coding

Answer 10

Participants learning one of four lists of noun pairs
Either two concrete nouns, two abstract nouns or one of each
Recall was worse for abstract firs pairs
Because can’t use visual labelling for abstract words, more concrete words can have rich imagery
First noun in pair serves as a conceptual peg for the second word

Question 11

Relational-Organizational Example

Answer 11

Participants told to use overt rote repetition, construct two images that did not interact, or construct an interactive scene of two words in pair

Rote memorization: 30% of paired associates
Noninteractive imagery: 27% of paired associates recalled
Interacting images: 53% of paired associated recalled

Proves that it is not imagery itself but how imagery is used that helps memory

Question 12

Empirical Evidence For Imagery

Answer 12

Participants were faster at identifying whether a corner was at the top of the letter F when they used verbalization as their response method
Requires formation of visual image of an F
Visual image probably has some picture like qualities, so a visually guided response (pointing) would be more disruptive of the spatial visual task

People were faster to respond by pointing when asked to identify if words in a sentence were nouns
Pointed to yes or no
Holding a sentence in memory would be more disrupted by verbal responses than by a spatial task

Question 13

Mental Rotation of Images

Answer 13

Amount of time it takes participants to determine if two drawings are depicting the same object or a mirror image reversal is proportional to the angle of rotation between the drawings
Suggests that they performed the task by mental rotation of 3D images
The time to compare is related to the degree of rotation
When presenting participants with irregular polygons, they still rotate the whole polygon (not just parts) because their performance was the same across all types of shapes

Question 14

Scanning Images

Answer 14

Participants formed a visual image and then scan it, moving from one location to another in their image

Question 15

Imaginal Scanning

Answer 15

Moving a visual image from one location to another within their image
The time it takes people to scan reveals something about the ways images represent spatial properties such as location and distance

Question 16

Evidence For Scanning

Answer 16

Participants studied an imaginary island with different landmarks
The length of time taken to scan between landmarks correlated with the actual distance between objects on the map
Demonstrates that people’s scanning is similar to scanning of real pictures

Participants study drawings of objects that are elongated in one direction and have easily describable ends and middle
The loner the distance from the designated end to the location of the part, the longer it took people to say whether the part they looked for was in the drawing
Presumably because visual image formed preserves spatial characteristics of the drawings

Question 17

Principles of Visual Imagery

Answer 17

Implicit encoding
Perceptual equivalence
Spatial equivalence
Transformational equivalence
Structural equivalence

Question 18

Implicit Encoding

Answer 18

Implicit encoding: info stored unintentionally along with other info
Mental imagery is instrumental in retrieving info about physical properties of objects or physical relationships among objects that was not explicitly encoded at a previous time
E.g. construct a visual image of your kitchen to count the number of cabinets

Question 19

Perceptual Equivalence

Answer 19

Imagery is functionally equivalent to perception - similar mechanisms in the visual system are activated when objects or events are imagined
Imagery can prime visual pathway (e.g. participants told to imagine a certain level perceived a faint projection of it quicker)

Question 20

Spatial Equivalence

Answer 20

Spatial arrangement of elements of mental image correspond to the way objects or their parts are arranged on actual physical surfaces or space
Evidence comes from scanning studies

Question 21

Transformational Equivalence

Answer 21

Imagined transformations and physical transformations exhibit corresponding dynamic characteristics and are governed by same laws of motion
Evidence comes from studies of mental rotation

Question 22

Structural Equivalence

Answer 22

Structure of mental images corresponds to that of perceived objects, structure is coherent, well organized, and can be reorganized and reinterpreted
Visual images are formed in pieces, then assembled into a final rendition
Participants took longer to form detailed mental pictures

Question 23

Critiques of Mental Imagery Research

Answer 23

Tacit knowledge/demand characteristics
Picture metaphor/analog position
Propositional theory

Question 24

Mental Imagery: Tacit Knowledge/Demand Characteristics

Answer 24

Experiments themselves give enough hints (explicit or implicit) for people to perform by relying on beliefs and knowledge and not on visual imagery alone
E.g. People may be mentally pausing in image scanning experiments because of beliefs/expectations about what experimenters want
Experimenter expectancy effects influence many investigations

Question 25

Mental Imagery: Picture Metaphor/Analog Position

Answer 25

Pictures and images are different
You can physically look at a picture without first knowing what its a picture of, but can’t do the opposite
Pictures and images are disrupted in different ways
Images are more easily distorted by viewer’s interpretations (e.g. false memories)

Question 26

Mental Imagery: Propositional Theory

Answer 26

Reject the idea that images serve as a distinct mental code for representing info
Believe there is a single code that is propositional in nature used to store and mentally represent info
Propositions can be linked in networks
When people don’t use imagery, quicker to identify that cats have claws (high association value, small visual part)

Question 27

Spatial Cognition

Answer 27

How people represent and navigate in and through space
E.g. a cognitive map (mental depiction of some part of our environment)

Question 28

Space of the Body

Answer 28

Includes knowledge of where the different parts of one’s body are located at any moment

Question 29

Space Around the Body

Answer 29

Area immediately around you

Question 30

Space of Navigation

Answer 30

Larger spaces (e.g. ones we walk through, explore, and travel through)
E.g. when giving directions to someone
Locomotion: moving the body over terrain
Wayfinding: planning and making decisions about where to go and how to get there

Question 31

Neuropsychological Findings: Cerebral Blood Flow

Answer 31

Occipital lobe and other posterior regions highly active during imagery tasks
Amount of activation increased if participants were told to visualize large versions of one image
Parahippocampal place area (ventromedial area): forming images of a place
Fusiform face area: when formed images of faces

Question 32

Neuropsychological Findings: Vegetative State

Answer 32

Can’t physical respond to commands, but shows evidence that some individuals can respond to commands internally
Tell people to imagine walking through house (activates parahippocampal gyrus and parietal lobe) vs playing a sport (supplementary motor area)
Attach these visualizations to a response of yes or no (e.g. imagine walking through your house if answer is yes)

Question 33

Neuropsychological Findings: Occipital Lobe Removal

Answer 33

MGS had her right occipital lobe removed as treatment for epilepsy
Removing part of the visual cortex decreases field of view
Before and after surgery, MGS performed a mental walk task
Imagined walking toward an animal and estimate how close she was when the image began to overflow her visual field
Proved her visual field became smaller in imagination too

Question 34

Neuropsychological Findings: Single Cell Recordings

Answer 34

Electrodes implanted in the medial temporal lobe of a patient with severe epileptic seizures
Found category specific neurons: neurons that respond to some objects but not others

Question 35

Neuropsychological Findings: Quadrant Experiment

Answer 35

Subjects memorized a display containing four quadrants
The subjects were scanned as they closed their eyes and visualized the display,
Heard two numbers, which had previously learned labels for specific quadrants, followed by the name of a dimension (such as length)
They were to decide whether the set of stripes in the first names quadrant was greater along that dimension than the set of stripes in the second named quadrant
Activation in primary occipital cortex during task (V1)