Module 10

Question 1

Historical views of imagery

Answer 1

• Aristotle believed imagery was central to thought and, in fact, wrote that “It is impossible to think without an image”
• Philosophers such as Descartes and Locke questioned whether images were mental copies of the world or whether they were something else entirely.
• John B. Watson suggested that what we experience as imagery can be better described as over-practiced language

Question 2

Mental imagery

Answer 2

The experience of mentally creating a perceptual experience in the absence of a physical stimulus. Although mental imagery is most frequently associated with visual imagery and mental pictures, not all imagery is visual. Imagery is possible for all our sensory modalities. You can also create mental images of stimuli that you have never experienced.

Question 3

Dual coding theory, Allan Paivio (1971)

Answer 3

A theory about knowledge representation that proposes knowledge can be stored as an abstract verbal code or an analog imagery-based code. For Paivio, imagery and language are two systems that we used to represent the content of thought, but it didn’t deal with the question of the nature of imagery itself.

Question 4

Abstract code

Answer 4

An arbitrary symbol system in which the symbols don’t resemble their real-world referent. For example, a verbal system is a type of abstract code.

Question 5

Onomatopoeia

Answer 5

A word that resembles the sound of the item it is referring to, for example, “quack” or “boom”. Onomatopoeia is more an exception to the abstraction of verbal systems. In any case, it is also true that onomatopoeia for the same sound can be quite different in different languages.

Question 6

Analog codes

Answer 6

A way to store information that resembles the physical stimulus being represented. For example, the nonverbal imagery system is based on sensorimotor information and is modality-specific: images are analog codes. The information contained in an image is linked to specific sensory input and motor output in our bodies.

Question 7

The imagery debate

Answer 7

A theoretical debate among cognitive psychologists about whether images are stored as pictures in our minds or as propositions. It has been ongoing for four decades and it has largely been driven by two researchers: Stephen Kosslyn and Zenon Pylyshyn.

Question 8

Depective representation

Answer 8

A type of analog code that maintains the perceptual and spatial characteristics of physical objects. Kosslyn’s view on mental images.

Question 9

Descriptive representation

Answer 9

A symbolic code used to represent knowledge that is abstract and does not resemble a stimulus in the real world. Pylyshyn’s view on mental images. For Pylyshyn, our experience of mental imagery isn’t enough to tell us the true format that we use to store knowledge.

Question 10

Difference depictive and descriptive representations

Answer 10

The major difference between depictive and descriptive representations is that descriptive representations do not preserve the perceptual and spatial information of a scene (ex. your kitchen); they contain only the conceptual information.

Question 11

Epiphenomenon

Answer 11

A by-product that arises from a process but does not have a causal effect on that process. For Pylyshyn, mental images are epiphenomena of more fundamental cognitice processing.

Question 12

Propositions and cognitive processing

Answer 12

Pylyshyn argues that cognitive processing fundamentally relies on manipulating cognitive symbols called propositions (ideas that can be verified as true or false). Propositions are able to describe the relationship between physical stimuli. The argument goes that a propositional code is the only code that is needed for all thought (no need for imagery). Propositions contain abstract conceptual knowledge which can be conveyed to someone else using language or images, both of which are argued to be secondary to propositions.

Question 13

What would the evidence be for each side of the mental imagery debate?

Answer 13

The idea is if images are depictive and maintain the perceptual and spatial characteristics of the real world, then people should process images and physical stimuli similarly. If, on the other hand, images are epiphenomena of abstract propositions, then mental processing would depend on the number of propositions instead of perceptual and spatial characteristics of stimuli.

Question 14

Mental scanning

Answer 14

An experimental technique in which participants are asked to scan their mental images while response time is measured. It was one of Kosslyn’s earliest experiment, to investigate whether images did indeed maintain the spatial characteristics of physical stimuli.

Question 15

Kosslyn’s experiment using mental scanning (1973)

Answer 15

Kosslyn reasoned that if visual images are analog codes of physical stimuli, it should take longer to process larger mental distances than shorter distances, just as it would take more time to travel longer physical distances than shorter ones. He indeed found that the farther away participants had to shift their attention to find the new part of the object, the longer the search time. That is, if participants started at the roots of a flower, it took them longer to mentally “see” the petals than the leaves.

Question 16

Interpretation of Kosslyn’s results (for the object mental scanning, 1973 experiment)

Answer 16

His finding supports the idea that images are depictive representations that maintain the spatial arrangements of physical objects. However, there is another possible explanation for the results: perhaps participants were storing information from the line drawings as a list of features and were searching through the memorized list rather than “looking” at a mental image. The results of Kosslyn’s first experiment could, therefore, be explained equally well as depictive representations or as propositions.

Question 17

Kosslyn’s map mental scanning experiment (1978)

Answer 17

Participants memorized a drawing of a map with different landmarks. Participants were told to visualize one of the landmarks, then to scan their mental image until they “arrived” at another landmark. In this experiment, the distances between landmarks differed but there were never any additional landmarks or properties in between them. The results showed that reaction time to mentally travel between landmarks increased as the physical distance between them increased. Kosslyn concluded that visual images maintained the relative distance of the real picture and were not influenced by the number of landmarks present.

Question 18

Shepard and Metzler’s (1971) mental rotation experiment

Answer 18

It was designed to investigate the time it took to mentally rotate mental images of abstract figures. They reasoned that if the mind is performing a process that is fundamentally similar to the rotation of real objects then we can make the following prediction: the more you have to rotate an object, the more time it takes you to do so mentally. Shepard and Metzler reported a linear relationship between the amount of angular rotation and the time it took participants to determine that if 2 shapes were the same. They found that participants could mentally rotate the objects at a rate of about 60° per second.

Question 19

Kosslyn’s (animals) size perception experiment

Answer 19

Kosslyn (1975) asked participants to imagine various animals standing next to either an elephant or a fly (for scale). Kosslyn then asked participants about the properties of the animals. Participants were faster to answer the questions when the animal was being imagined next to a fly (and was relatively big) compared to when it was imagined next to an elephant (and was relatively small). Kosslyn reasoned that participants needed to mentally “zoom in” to “see” the details of the relatively small mouse standing next to an elephant; which takes time

Question 20

Kosslyn’s (animals) size perception experiment, reversed

Answer 20

To establish that the increased reaction time was caused by the relative size of the image and not something else (like the number of facts known about the animals), he had participants imagine a mouse standing next to an elephant-sized fly and a fly-sized elephant. This time, the reaction times were reversed: Participants responded faster to the question about the mouse when it was standing next to the tiny elephant. This means that reaction time to answer questions about the visual details of animals depended on the relative size of the image.

Question 21

Perky’s experiment (on the link between perception and imagery, 1910)

Answer 21

Perky asked participants to create visual images of everyday items while she projected very dim pictures of those same items on a screen in front of participants. The finding was that participants described their images to match the pictures being projected (for example imaging a blue book), but they had no idea they were actually seeing the objects. In other words, participants mistook their perception for imagery.

Question 22

Experiment on interference of perception by imagery

Answer 22

Segal and Fusella (1970) had participants perform a perceptual detection task while simultaneously performing an imagery task. Participants had to indicate if an auditory or visual stimulus was present, if any. Both the visual and auditory stimuli were presented at very low intensities making the detection task quite difficult. They found that visual imagery interfered with visual perception and auditory imagery interfered with auditory perception. These results support the claim that imagery and perception share the same mechanisms.

Question 23

Experiment on facilitation of perception by imagery

Answer 23

Farah (1985) showed participants very faint pictures of either the capital letters T or H or participants saw blank slides. Participants performed a detection task while simultaneously performing an imagery task. In this case, imagery facilitated perception. Participants were more accurate at detecting the same letter that they were imagining compared to when they were imagining the other letter. his experiment showed that when only visual stimuli were used, imagery could help perception by giving it a boost.

Question 24

Motion aftereffect

Answer 24

A perceptual experience that occurs after exposure to motion in one direction in which a static scene appears to move in the opposite direction of the previously viewed motion. Visual aftereffects are a type of visual illusion that occur after prolonged viewing of a visual stimulus and are known to result from the activity of cells in the visual system.

Question 25

Winawer experiment on the motion aftereffect

Answer 25

Winawer had participants imagine motion in one direction for 60 seconds to induce a motion aftereffect. hey found that imagining motion was enough to later bias participants’ perception of motion and create a motion aftereffect. Since a motion aftereffect occurs because of activity of cells in the visual system, it can be inferred that imagery makes use of those same cells.

Question 26

Falsification

Answer 26

A key principle in science in which theories are tested in order to prove they are false, instead of searching for evidence to confirm a hypothesis. If a researcher finds evidence that confirms their theory, they can’t be sure if it is always true or just true in that particular experiment. If, on the other hand, a researcher finds evidence against their theory, they can conclude that the theory isn’t supported.

Question 27

Reed (1974) experiment on imagining unfamiliar objects

Answer 27

Reed (1974) asked participants to memorize pictures. Participants then had to indicate whether new figures were part of the original picture by relying only on their memory. Participants were able to accurately indicate whether the new shapes were part of the original in some cases, but accuracy was quite low in other cases. This suggested that images may be stored using meaningful verbal labels rather than depictive representations.

Question 28

Experimenter expectancy effect

Answer 28

An effect in which an experimenter may unconsciously communicate to participants their expectations about what they expect the results to be, and in turn, causing the participant to unconsciously behave according to the experimenter’s expectations.

Question 29

Demand characteristics

Answer 29

Subtle cues in experimental tasks or instructions that may bias participants’ behavior. That is, participants might be behaving, consciously or unconsciously, in a way that they believe the experimenter wants them to perform.

Question 30

Demand characteristics in Kosslyn’s map experiments

Answer 30

Pylyshyn argued that the reason Kosslyn et al. (1978) found a relationship between distance and time in their map mental scanning experiment was because participants assumed they were supposed to act “as if” they were travelling around a map and behaved accordingly. Also, because participants’ performance varied depending on the task details, it demonstrates that Kosslyn’s results only supported depictive representations because that’s what participants thought they were supposed to do.

Question 31

Case of TC (cortical blindness, loss of visual imagery)

Answer 31

TC suffered damage to his occipital and temporal lobes (2 areas important for visual perception). He had cortical blindness. He was completely unable to distinguish light from dark. When an object was moving quickly towards his eye, he failed to move his head or even blink. This loss of conscious vision was accompanied by a loss in visual imagery.

Question 32

Case of PB (cortical blindness, maintained visual imagery)

Answer 32

Zago and colleagues (2010) describe patient PB who had damage to his occipital cortex as a result of a stroke and suffered from cortical blindness similar to patient TC. However, unlike patient TC, PB performed normally on the same imagery tasks that TC wasn’t able to do.

Question 33

Case of Madame D, use of visual imagery for lost perception

Answer 33

Madame D suffered damage to a portion of the brain bordering the occipital and temporal lobes. She was able to see and could copy drawings, but she couldn’t read or visually recognize objects or faces. She also complained of a lack of color vision. Despite these visual impairments, her visual imagery remained remarkably unimpaired. She reported that if she wasn’t able to recognize an object at her home, she would visualize the objects that were typically found in that location to help her recognize the objects actually present.

Question 34

Parahippocampal place area (PPA)

Answer 34

A brain region located in the inferior temporal lobe that responds preferentially scenes of places and buildings.

Question 35

O’Craven and Kanwisher experiment on the FFA and PPA

Answer 35

Participants were shown photographs of faces and buildings and asked to imagine the same faces and buildings. fMRI revealed that the FFA showed greater activity when viewing and imagining faces compared to buildings, and that the PPA showed greater activity when viewing and imaging buildings compared to faces. However, brain activity in FFA and PPA was greater during the visual tasks than the imagery tasks. Also, an observer could correctly predict whether a participant was imagining a face or a building simply by looking at their brain activity.

Question 36

Where in the brain is imagery and perception most similar?

Answer 36

Ganis and colleagues (2004) found that brain areas involved in planning, cognitive control, attention, and memory (near the front of the brain) showed the most similarity in activity during visual perception and imagery tasks. There was only limited similarity in the activity in the brain regions involved in visual processing (such as V1) when participants were engaged in perception and imagery tasks

Question 37

Explanation for why imagery and perception activate the brain similarly but not exactly the same way

Answer 37

During perception there is a stimulus present. This stimulus is detected by receptor cells and sent to early processing areas in the brain. Imagery, on the other hand, lacks any physical stimulus, so we may expect reduced activity in early processing areas of the brain. Dijkstra (2017) believe that what distinguishes imagery and perception is that during imagery, higher-level brain areas (ex. PFC) send top-down signals to perceptual processing areas. Imagery is like a re-enactment of the perceptual experience where the same perceptual neurons are activated by frontal brain areas instead of a physical stimulus.

Question 38

Picture superiority effect

Answer 38

An effect in which memory is better for pictures than for words. This means that a particularly effective way to use imagery to help memory is to imagine interactive images. Research found that recall for words that had been imagined as images was the same as recall for images alone

Question 39

Explanation of picture superiority effect

Answer 39

Paivio explains the effect using his dual-coding theory. According to Paivio, when we see a picture, we automatically create a visual representation (the analog code described earlier) and give it a verbal label (the abstract code described earlier). When we read a word, on the other hand, we only generate the verbal label. The benefit of images, therefore, is that we store them in memory using two codes instead of only one.

Question 40

Concreteness effect

Answer 40

An effect in which memory is better for concrete words (ex. referring to objects) than abstract words (referring to concepts, like belief, luck, etc.). Paivio proposed that concrete words are easier to imagine visually so we are likely to spontaneously create a visual image in addition to the verbal label when trying to remember them.

Question 41

Parker and Dagnall experiment on concreteness effect

Answer 41

Participants had to listen to a list of abstract and concrete words that they were told they’d have to remember later. While listening to the words, half of the participants looked at a screen with a static visual noise display, and half looked at a dynamic visual noise display (which is known to interfere with the ability to create images). The results demonstrated the classic concreteness effect, but only in participants who watched the static visual noise display. Interfering with the ability to create visual images removed the benefit of concrete words over abstract words in memory.

Question 42

Ways to measure imagery

Answer 42

• Self report questionnaires where participants answer questions about their imagery experiences (ex. VVIQ)
• Objective, performance tests (ex. PFT)

Question 43

Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ)

Answer 43

A self-report questionnaire designed to measure the vividness of a person’s visual imagery. This questionnaire asks participants to visualize a scenario and indicate on a scale from 1 to 5 how vivid the scene is. Despite being a subjective measure of people’s internal experience, the VVIQ is quite reliable in measuring vividness of imagery between people. The VVIQ is a test of object imagery.

Question 44

Paper Folding Test (PFT)

Answer 44

A performance-based objective test of visual imagery in which a participant is asked to mentally unfold a piece of paper with a hole in it to determine where the holes would be located in the unfolded paper. he PFT is considered to be a test of spatial ability.

Question 45

Object imagery

Answer 45

The ability to mentally process information about the appearance of objects, including information about shape, color, and texture.

Question 46

Spatial ability

Answer 46

The ability to mentally process information about the spatial relation of objects, their parts, and their locations. This includes the ability to mentally manipulate and transform objects.

Question 47

Congenital aphantasia

Answer 47

A condition experienced by about 1%–3% of the population in which an individual is completely unable to form mental images in the absence of any brain injury. Interestingly, although individuals with aphantasia report no subjective experience of imagery and get very low scores on tests of object imagery like the VVIQ, their spatial ability is similar to the rest of the population. This suggests that there may be at least two distinct imagery systems: one for mentally manipulating visual objects and one for imagining object identity. Also, those with aphantasia report difficulty recalling autobiographical memories and recognizing faces.

Question 48

Case of MX - loss of visual imagery

Answer 48

MX claimed to have completely lost the ability to form visual images after undergoing cardiac surgery. MX had always believed he had above average imagery until that day. Corroborating his reports, MX scored the lowest possible score on the VVIQ. fMRI revealed that brain areas that are typically active during imagery (visual cortex and fusiform gyrus) were inhibited in MX when he tried to create visual images.

Question 49

Hyperphantasia

Answer 49

A condition of having extremely vivid mental imagery, often associated with very high autobiographical memory. Currently, very little is known about hyperphantasia; however, it may be rarer than aphantasia

Question 50

Jobs and visual imagery

Answer 50

Those with aphantasia were particularly likely to be scientists and mathematicians, whereas those with hyperphantasia were more likely employed in creative professions. This finding matches what Keogh and Pearson reported about people with aphantasia having average or above average spatial ability and those with hyperphantasia having exceptional object imagery.