Lec 10 Flashcards
What is the representational mind?
The brain represents the world around it. Representations are about something. Representations have a referent (the actual object, event, or concept) and a sense (the way the referent is presented, with a specific meaning or perspective that might differ from the raw referent).
Example: “Home”
Referent is the actual object/place, home
Sense is the feeling/meaning of being attached to home
Types of representation
Analogue representations: 1 to 1 relationship between representation and referent
e.g. An analouge clock, two hands just continously moving, directly reflecting the time
Propositional representation: arbitrary arguments that stand for something else
e.g. digital clock represents time through discrete variables as agreed by society
Paivios dual coding hypothesis
informations is represented through verbal (the word itself) and imaginal (imagery of objects) codes. The information can be coded in one or both systems. Concrete words stored in both codes, but abstract words may only be stored in the verbal code
Conceptual-Propositional Hypothesis
Logical structures to store facts of the world. Normal structure is (Relationship (subject, object))
e.g. (kissed(boy, girl)) = girl was kissed by boy. People will not always remember this word by word (analogue storage), may say ‘the boy kissed the girl’. But analogue storage may be beyond human capacity. People will make mistakes, therefore we must store information based off meaning not structure, or memory will be overloaded (propositional format).
Evidence for propositional effects in imagery
Same size lines with balls connected to each end, one says spectacles one says barbell. When testing, If shown a small line, participant more likely to say they saw this line originally if shown the ‘spectacle’ line. If shown bigger line, more likely to say they saw this originally if shown ‘barbell’.
Evidence for analogue effects in imagery
Transformation: concrete information that transforms to mean something else that cant be explained propositionally (e.g. number 4 and D transformed to boat)
Size effect: mental imagery represents real world representation. (e.g. imagining frog next to fly, hard to give details about fly, have to zoom in, in head) context matters.
Image scanning: if shown aribitrary map and study it, if asked imagine certain place and going to another place, correlation between how distant places are and how quick to switch.
Functional equivalence hypothesis
Mental imagery is not just abstract propositional or analouge representations, relationship between object and imagery is functionally equivalent to relationship in the real word
Mental rotation
people use imagery when the object is being rotated, use more imagery the more it is rotated, therefore reaction time increases. But effects may be explained by demand characteristics, show behaviour because we are cued by experimenters.
after affects and imagery (Corballis and Mclaren)
If you look at a blue screen than a white screen immediately, will initially see opposite for a bit (yellow). Same for rotating disc, if then shown static, disc will initially move in opposite direction. This influences next trial of rotation task. if after affect goes in direction you want to turn object for next trial, RT is faster. Shows perceptual after effects, interfere with rotation.
Imagery interferences (segal and forscala)
Participant had two tasks. auditory detection task every time heard a beep. visual task, identifiying dot on screen. When doing these tasks, participants asked to do these tasks while imagining either telephone ringing or visual scene. If imagining scene while doing visual task, there are errors. If imagining ringing while doing auditory task, do worse. When doing cross-modally (e.g. telelphone ringing, visual task) no errors. Same modality require same processes, causing interferences.
PET and ERP scans for imagery
PET: greater activation in visual cortex when imagining than when perceiving
ERP: participants with more vivid imagery show stronger ERP effects
Mentalese
thinking can be verbal, imaginal and/or conceptual-propositional form. Imagery uses same cognitive resources as perception, showing functional equivalence.
Lesions and impairments in imagery (Bisiach and Luzzatti)
Damage to right parietal lobe causes visual neglect syndrome. Neglect also in the imaginary space. Also there is reduced imaginery image size after having an occipital lobectomy. Damage to any visual areas, results in loss of same properties in imagery.
Mental time travel
We can relive past events (episodic memory) and pre-live future events (episodic foresight) in our imagination. We draw conclusions for future events based off previous events (extrapolation), by reassembling basic elements (e.g. actors, acts, objects) into novel scenarios
Imagination as a stage
create scenarios under similar mental analogues as a stage
stage = e.g. imagination
Actors = self-awareness of who you are and how other people operate
Set = has to be realistic (folk physics)
Playwright (story) = going through the scenarios (narrative skills)
director = evaluating the best versions of scenarios
executive producer = stops thinking and decides decision (executive function)
