Chapter 10: Visual Imagery Imagery in the History of Psychology Visual imagery: seeing in the absence of a visual stimulus

Mental imagery: ability to recreate the sensory world in the absence of physical stimuli, also occurs in senses other than vision Early Ideas about Imagery Wundt proposed that images were one of the three basic elements of: consciousness, sensations, feelings Studying images was a way of studying thinking Imageless thought debate: thought is impossible without an image vs thoughts is separate from image !ehaviourists branded study of image " unproductive # visual images are invisible to everyone e$cept person e$periencing them

Imagery and the %ognitive &evolution Paivio easier to remember concrete nouns 'truck, tree( that can be imaged, than it is to remember abstract nouns 'truth, )ustice( o *sed paired+associate learning,

-ethod: Paired+.ssociate /earning Participants presented with pairs of words 'e g boat+hat, car+house( during a study period 0hen presented during test period, first word from each pair 0ask " recall word that was paired with it during the study period Conceptual peg hypothesis: concrete nouns create images that other words can 1hang onto2 o Easier for concrete nouns than abstract nouns Shepard and met3ler mental chronometry # determining the amount of time needed to carry out various cognitive tasks o -ental rotation e$periment # were the two pictures the same ob)ect or different o Suggests that imagery and perception may share the same mechanisms

Imagery and Perception: 4o they share the same mechanism5 -ental and perceptual images both involve spatial representation of the stimulus o Spatial e$perience for both imagery and perception matches the layout of the actual stimulus Mental scanning: participants create mental images and then scan them in their minds

6osslyn7s -ental Scanning E$periments .sked participants to memorise a picture of an ob)ect, such as a boat, and to focus on one part of the boat, such as an anchor

o 0hen looked for another part of the boat, such as the motor o Press 1true2 when found this part, of 1false2 when they couldn7t find it If imagery, like perception, is spatial, then it should take longer for participants to find parts that are located farther from the initial point of focus because they would be scanning across the image of the ob)ect

4emonstration: -ental Scanning 8isual imagery is spatial in nature Imagery debate: debate about whether imagery is based on spatial mechanisms, such as those involved in perception, or based on mechanisms related to language, propositional mechanisms 0he Imagery 4ebate: Is imagery spatial or propositional5 6osslyn mechanism responsible for imagery involves a spatial representation # representation in which different parts of an image can be described as corresponding to specific locations in space Pylyshyn spatial e$perience of mental images is an epiphenomenon # something that accompanies the real mechanism but isn7t actually part of the mechanism o Something is happening in the mind, but don7t tell us how it is happening o Proposed that imagery is propositional Propositional representation: relationships can be represented by abstract symbols, such as an e9uation, or a statement such as 10he cat is under the table2 o Spatial representation # spatial layout showing cat and table o Depictive representations: representations that are like realistic pictures that resemble an ob)ect, so that part of the representation correspond to parts of the ob)ect Tactic kno ledge e!planation: participants unconsciously use knowledge about the world in making their )udgements

%omparing Imagery and Perception Si3e in the 8isual :ield ;bserving an ob)ect from far away would only fill a portion of your visual field # difficult to see small details o .s you 3oom in It fills more of your visual field 6osslyn asked participants 9uestions depending on the images in their visual field o Elephant and rabbit # elephant fills the field o &abbit and fly # rabbit fills the field o &eaction times indicate that the larger an ob)ect filled the field, the easier it was to answer 9uestions about that ob)ect Mental alk task: imagine that they were walking toward their mental image of an animal o 0ask was to estimate when 1overflow2 occurred # image filled visual field or when edges started to become fu33y o 1overflow2 took longer for larger ob)ects than smaller '<< feet for an elephant vs < foot for a mouse( Evidence that images are spatial, )ust like perception

Interactions of Imagery and Perception If imagery affects perception ' or vice+versa(, they must have access to the same mechanisms Perky asked participants to make a mental image of an ob)ect which she actually pro)ected on the screen o Participants7 description of their 1mental images2 were the same as those pro)ected on the screen :arah7s letter visuali3ation e$periment accuracy was higher when letter was the same as one that had been imagined o 4emonstrates that imagery and perception share the same mechanisms Is there a way to resolve the imagery debate5 %an7t rule out the propositional e$planation and Pylyshyn7s tacit knowledge e$planation Possible that participants can be influences by their past e$perience with perception # unknowingly be stimulating perceptual responses in imagery e$periences Should investigate how the brain responds to visual imagery

Imagery and the !rain Imagery =eurons in the !rain =eurons responded to some ob)ects but not to others # imagery neurons o 0hese neurons respond both to perceiving an ob)ect and to imagining it

!rain Imaging Subtracting baseline response from imagery response indicated which areas of the brain were activated by imagery !oth perception and imagery activate the visual corte$ o >uestions that involve imagery had a greater response in the visual corte$ than responses generated to non+imagery 9uestions 0here is almost complete overlap of the activation caused by perception and imagery in the front of the brain, but some differences near the back of the brain o /ocation of visual receiving area is here, where signals from the retina first reach the corte$ f-&I e$periment found that when participants were creating images using visual imagery, some areas associated with non+visual areas such as hearing and touch were deactivated o 8isual mental images are more fragile than real perception # deactivation 9uiets down irrelevant activity that might interfere with the mental image ;verlap " perception and imagery share some mechanisms

0ranscranial -agnetic Stimulation '0-S( !rain activity can also be an epiphenomenon o .rea of brain activated by imagery doesn7t prove that this activity causes imagery

-ay indicate that something is happening, but may have nothing to do with causing imagery

-ethod: 0-S 0ask " determine whether a specific area of the brain is involved in a particular function o 0emporarily deactivate the said area !rain activation that occurs in response to imagery is not an epiphenomenon # brain activity in the visual corte$ plays a casual role in both perception and imagery o Stimulation caused participants to respond more slowly in both for perception and imagery during )udgements of a task =europsychological %ase Studies &emoving part of the 8isual %orte$ decreases image si3e &emoval of visual corte$ reduced the si3e of her field of view during the mental walk task Supports the idea that the visual corte$ is important for imagery Perceptual Problems are accompanied by problems with imagery People who have the lost the ability to see colour due to brain damage are also unable to create colours through imagery "nilateral neglect: damage to parietal lobes where patient ignore ob)ects in one half of the visual field o =eglect half of the ob)ects when imagining it as well o Supports idea that mental imagery and perception share physiological mechanisms 4issociations between Imagery and Perception Dissociations: people with brain damage had one function present and another function absent Some cases where patients had normal perception but unable to draw ob)ects from memory, a task re9uiring imagery o 0he vice+versa is also seen in some other patients -aking Sense of the =europsychological results 0here is a double dissociation between imagery and perception o -ay mean that the two functions of perception and imagery are served by different mechanisms -echanisms for perception and imagery overlap only partially o 8isual perception originates as !*P and later on 04P becomes involved o Imagery originates as 04P %onclusions from the Imagery 4ebate Imagery and perception are closely related and share some mechanisms f-&I results overlap between brain activation is not complete Perception is stable, imagery is fragile Harder to manipulate mental images than images that are created perceptually

*sing Imagery to Improve -emory Placing images at /ocations Method o# loci: method in which things to be remembered are placed at different locations in a mental image of a spatial layout Placing images at locations can help with retrieving memories later .ssociating Images with Words Peg ord techni$ue: instead of visuali3ing items in different locations, you associate them with concrete words E g one+bun, two+shoe, three+tree o Easy to remember words in order because they were created by rhming them wtih the numbers o &hyming also provides a retrieval cue -akes it possible to immediately identify an item based on its order on the list