/ Cognition the thinking animal

14-03-15 Cognition the thinking animal chaptert 9 visual imagery

Imagery in early psychology

The purpose of visual imagery serves a memory function or a problem solving function. Memory: making available of mental imagery under certain conditions. Problem solving: Allowing us to move certain images in the minds eye before actually performing the task.

Pictorial representations and verbal representations differ from each other. Verbal and pictorial representations use different set of representational system and different processes that operate through these representations. It is not obvious that mental images actually serve a function. Visual images are supported by a different representational system than that of the verbal. Memory makes available the properties of objects that are not currently there.

Imagery in early psychology

Some things do not lend themselves for imagery. Imageless thought controversy: is it possible to have thoughts that are not acompanied by images? Studying images was largely ignored untill the early 1960's.

How can it be that some people claim to have absolutely no thought with images if imagery is more or less synonymous with thought. It turns out that although most people report having thoughts with images there are certain tasks in which nobody reports using images. For example abstract definitions or certain handlings like comparing two weights. The main reason for neglecting images before this time was because imagery is subjective.

Imagery re-enters psychology Paivio: Participants can talk about their thoughts but the verbal representation of that what is in the mind is never an exact reproduction but a model of their verbal thoughts. Also it's possible to produce a verbal description of a mental image. There is no reason why psychologists should not make the jump from spoken word to mental construct “visual image representation” while they do make the jump from mental construct to words “verbal representation”.

The functional role of images. Concreteness and abstractness of the word (potato vs intellect). Concrete words have visual imagery abstract don't. Four combinations for concrete and abstract words. C-c /c-a /a-c /a-a. Memory is best when both words are concrete and worst when both are abstract.

Two ways to represent concepts: mental image – verbal representation. Concrete concepts (fork) can be represented through words and imagery wherass abstract concepts only have one representation. Verbal and imagery operate in a parallel. If both are working memory works best. For f one representation can't be retrieved it is more likely you might be able to retrieve the other. Concrete words are thus easier to rmember than abstract.

Different representationonal system. Verbal system : Logogens Non verbal: imagens Imagens can be embedded in one another when they exist out of several parts (family picture vs one familymember). Logogens don't have this quality. Logogens and imogens can have connections (poodle – woe) imogens sometimes are not connected to logogens (crease lip – philtrum).

How imagery affects memory. Imagery and perception are related. (spatial and verbal tasks). Spatial and verbal forms of representation. There is a relationship in between perception and imagery. Imagery and perception overlap. Perceptual process to identify object but also name retrieval.

How does visual imagery work? Images are generated one part at a time. (researched through generating letters). Images with more parts take longer to generate then images with fewer parts.

Visual vs spatial aspects of image generation. Imagery and perception overlap. Images are generated in parts which means that parts must be put together in the correct spatial configuration. Anatomically seperate processes suppport the generation of image parts. And the configuration of the parts into the correct spatial locations. There's a what and where stream. Visual imagery and spatial imagery.

Agnosia: Trouble identifying objects through vision. Ability to recognize different parts of an object (fingers + 5 tubes but not outcome which is glove). Locating objects also no problem even though no recognition of what the object is.

Image maintenance Image generating, the image needs to be constantly refreshed, if it's not constantly maintained we lose the image. This is perhaps because imagery shares processes with vision and vision requires fast fading so that our view of the world doesn't get confused as we move our eyes.

Images are limited because they need constant refreshing, they are also limited in the amount of information they contain. Participants chunk spatial dimensions. Imspecting the image means interpreting the interpretation that is on the visual buffer (small person looking to a big screen). Visual imagery and perception complement each other when you inspect a single object through if you attempt to inspect something (moving closer to a painting).

Tracking and remembering sentences. If the tasks performed used imagery on one task (sentences) and perception for the other (tracking) then they would make more errors. So they interfere with each other. Participants can use imagery to combine simple parts and then see unexpected wholes in the visual image. Participants can manipulate mental images of simple figures and recognize the resulting pattern as something different from what they started with. It is possible to mentally manipulate images inspect results and in so doing discover new patterns. The ability to inspect different parts from other parts. Mentally zooming into an image to inspect a subpart. Even rescaling. Image inspection concerns the relation of eyemovement. Saccades (eye movemnet and fixation were closely correlated in the perceprion and imagery conditions. Eye movements are related to shifts of attention.

Image transformation Mental image transformation (rotatting objects mentally) faithfully reflects the physical properties of objects. The cmplexity of the object doesn't affect the ease with which we can percieve an object rotating. Mental transformations mirror the real world, imaging rotations take longer if the rotation would be difficult in real world. Mental images mirror perception for example imagery maintains momentum. Why do mental representations act in the same way as the real ? Because the mental entity is not autonomous but represents the movement of a physical entity.

The last statement would mean that we are unable to think of anything if it doesn't already exist.