Imagery and Knowledge Flashcards
imagery
mental recreating a sensory stimulus in the absence of the sensory stimulus
Paivio’s dual-coding theory
human knowledge is represented by a verbal system (abstract code) and a nonverbal/imagery system (an analog code)
imagery debate
does imagery use a picture-like code (Kosslyn) or a symbolic code (Pylyshyn)?
depictive representation (Kosslyn)
analog code that maintains perceptual and spatial characteristics of objects
direct view: knowledge is represented in both mental images and linguistic code
Kosslyn’s mental scanning technique
going from bottom to top in a mental image (roots to petals) - RT is longer when physical distance increases
mental rotation
time taken to match a target object increases when you have to mentally rotate it
mental scaling
using relative size of objects to see if we have to mentally zoom into pictures to answer questions about details - yes
evidence for depictive representations
mental scanning, rotation, scaling
both imagery and perception share the same mechanisms and interfere with each other (visual imagery with visual perception)
imagery can also facilitate perception
imagery is susceptible to visual illusions
descriptive representations (Pylyshyn’s propositional theory)
symbolic codes that convey abstract conceptual information (do not preserve perceptual features)
relies on propositions, imagery is an epiphenomenon (indirect representation of knowledge)
falsification studies of depictive representations
some component shapes of an image weren’t identified as belonging to the original stimulus = not an image
previous studies may have relied on experimenter expectancy and demand characteristics
mental scanning: Ps could be searching through lists of words
neuropsychology cases where perceptual abilities are damaged, but imagery is still fine
brain areas associated with imagery
modality-specific sensory processing areas (other sensory brain areas get deactivated during imagery but not perception)
frontal lobe and other complex thought mechanisms (memory, planning, attention) could be sending top-down signals to early processing areas
generative adversarial networks
computers create realistic images which a discriminator network has to distinguish from original images
picture superiority effect
using imagery leads to better recall
concreteness effect
better recall for concrete words rather than abstract (effect is eliminated when people cannot imagine the concrete words)
imagery’s role in anxiety
increased negative imagery of future events
imagery’s role in PTSD
negative intrusive imagery
imagery’s role in depression
decrease in frequency and vividness of positive imagery
imagining suicidal acts increases risk of suicide
imagery as a treatment for mental disorders
replace negative memories with neutral/positive ones
assessing individual differences in imagery ability
vividness of visual imagery questionnaire: object imagery
paper folding test: spatial imagery
congenital aphantasia
inability to form visual images
hyperphantasia
extremely vivid mental imagery (associated with better autobiographical memory)
vividness of mental images and individual differences
familiarity = more vivid
expertise = more vivid (musicians have more vivid auditory imagery of music)
visualizers vs. verbalizers
visualizers recall past events with images, verbalizers with words
both use visual imagery equally, but verbalizers use more auditory imagery
heard vs. imagined timbre experiment for imagery
Ps asked to judge whether a heard tone is from a different instrument than an imagined tone = faster RT when both tones matched (similar to the perceptual task, though the effect isn’t as strong)
so imagery and perception share brain mechanisms
imagery feedback piano-playing experimetn
Ps either got all feedback during training, only auditory, only tactile, or no feedback
recall decreases as amount of feedback decreases (but people high on auditory imagery had better recall in the tactile feedback only condition = able to compensate for the lack of auditory feedback)