Lecture 6- Imagery And Foresight

Question 0

What are propositional representations? Give an example

Answer 0

Propositional representations are mental representations of the world that our out of proportion or highlight some features more than others. For example a digital clock or a mathematical formula

Question 1

What are analogue representations? Give an example

Answer 1

Analogue representations are the mental representations of the world that are accurate and to scale. For example- an analogue clock or a photograph

Question 2

What is paivio’s dual coding process suggest about mental imagery?

Answer 2

Paivio suggests that information is represented both verbally and imaginally in the brain. Abstract words are those that can only be spoken e.g. “The” and concrete words are those that can be spoken and envisioned in the mind e.g. “Dog”. Concrete words are therefore remembered better than abstract words as they are processed across both verbal and imaginal codes.

Question 3

What is the conceptual-propositional hypothesis?

Answer 3

The conceptual - propositional hypothesis by Anderson and bower suggests that information is represented propositionally in the mind such that only important details like subject/object are remembered. They found in a study that when given a sentence such as “the boy kissed the girl” they were just as likely to recall “the girl got kissed by the boy”.

Question 4

What study provided evidence for the propositional representation of mental imagery?

Answer 4

A study where ps where presented with an image that could be interpreted as barbells or spectacles. Each half of participants either were told they saw spectacles or barbells. When asked later to draw the image that they had seen, those who were told that the image was spectacles drew their closer together and those with the barbells drew them further apart. Showed that people represented actual real-life image with word.

Question 5

What 3 things provide evidence for analogue effects of mental imagery?

Answer 5

1. Transformations - ability to mentally transform shapes and objects to interpret something
2. Size effects (kosslyn) - showed ps a frog next to an elephant or a frog next to a fly and asked them whether or not the frog had a tail. Ps were quicker to answer in fly condition as the mental image was already zoomed
3. Image scanning- takes a similar time to image route on map and to actually take that route

Question 6

What is the functional - equivalence model? Who is it by? And what 2 things provide evidence for it?

Answer 6

The functional - equivalence model by kosslyn and Shepard says that mental imagery is neither analogue nor propositional, it simply reflects the functionality mental objects have with other objects in the real world. Two things support this: the first is that perception and mental imagery share similar cognitive processes. (Perception = bottom-up, mental imagery = top-down) and the second is mental rotation evidence

Question 7

Explain the study (and author) that suggests imagery uses the same cognitive resources as perception.

Answer 7

Segal and fuscella’s study presented participants with a visual or auditory detection task’s and then either asked participants to imagine a telephone ringing or a visual scene. The results indicated that interference was seen only across the same modality. Providing evidence that perception and mental imagery share cognitive resources

Question 8

What is symons dream interference hypothesis?

Answer 8

Dreams reported as only being visual or kinaesthetic experiences and not auditory, tactile or olfactory ones. Symons suggests that this is because visual and kinaesthetic senses can be afforded whilst sleeping whereas auditory, tactile and olfactory are important for alerting danger.

Question 9

What are the 4 commonalities of imagery and foresight/ memory?

Answer 9

1. Similar brain activation - both medial temporal and medial prefrontal lobes
2. Similar psychological characteristics- the more temporarily distant an event is, the more abstract and decontextualised it is.
3. Similar impairment - amnesic patients have trouble imaging future events
4. Similar development- between 3-4 and both decline with age

Question 10

What’s it called when past behaviours predict future events?

Answer 10

Extrapolation

Question 11

What’s the process of resembling basic elements into novel situations called ?

Answer 11

Vocabulary for recombination

Question 12

Describe a study that suggests episodic-like memory in animals? What is the skepticism around these claims?

Answer 12

Scrub jays where shown food (either a worm or nuts) that was in location (left or right of tray) and then were returned to the scene 4hrs or 120hrs later. Results showed that the scrub jays knew where to go to collect the food that was best after that time period (obviously worms spoiled after 120hrs). Some argue that this could reflect semantic memory more (ie a knowledge of food and when it spoils).

Question 13

What 2 things suggest that animals may possess foresight? What is the general conclusion ?

Answer 13

1. Being prepared matters- prepare for things that will occur in the future eg hibernation, nest building
2. Individual learning - animals can learn through classical condition eg that a CS predicts the arrival of the US (even though this is immediate future)

That animals may have some foresight but not on a larger scale- no goal setting, planning etc