Imagery -1

Mental Imagery

creating a perception of smth in your mind, in absence of that actual input to the senses

Imageless thought debate happened in

1800s (before behaviorism and modern cognitive psychology )

Imageless thought debate question:

Does all thought require mental imagery? is it necessary

Francis Galton was known for

his ‘breakfast table experiment‘

breakfast table experiment

Asked his friends to picture items on their breakfast table in their mind’s eye and describe the scene to him

breakfast table experiment results:

some had the imagery ability, some had no such ability but still can recalled what was on the table (can think of the items but don’t actually see it in their mind)

Galton concluded that: Thought doesn’t

necessarily involve mental imagery

imageless thought is

possible

Modern Cog psychologists supported

Galton’s observation

The psychologists had participants do

Vividness of mental imagery questionnaire to quantify the ability to perform imagery

The questionnaire has

rating scale (1-5) and questions are about “can you imagine…. (specific scenario/scene)”

The psychologists also found the same results as Galton

1. have imagery

2. doesn’t have imagery

The psychologists termed this condition

Aphantasia

Aphantasia

inability to form mental images, but can still think

The questionnaire and Galton’s experiment made many psychologists want to prove further that

Even tho you can think of things without imagery, it is still important for some mental function

A classical experiment to prove that you still need imagery for cognitive tasks is

Mental Rotation

Mental Rotation experiment is by

Shepard and Metzler (psychologist)

Task in mental rotation

say whether the 2 pictures are the same in different orientation, or different objects

Mental rotation relies on

reaction time

If people use mental imagery to rotate one of the objects in their mind’s eye to see if it fits, they should take longer

if there is a long distance to rotate

If people use mental imagery to rotate one of the objects in their mind’s eye to see if it fits, they should take shorter

if there is a short distance to rotate

Main finding:

The farther the object has to be rotated, the longer your reaction time (linear + according to their thinking)

The reaction time is indicate that participants form

a mental image of the objects, that they rotate in their mind

So imagery does play a role in

cognitive functioning, for instance in solving this task

It is possible for thought to form without imagery, but imagery does play

a role in some forms of thinking, for instance solving mental rotation