The mind's eye and visual imagery (psych 2360)

imagery

pictures in the mind

visual imagery

experiencing a sensory impression in the absence of sensory input

-Mind’s eye

-role in memory, spatial reasoning and creativity

-mental canvas

-even without physical input, we can see, manipulate, and work with images in our minds

Hyper visual minds and aphantasia

Hyper-visual minds- vivid imagery 

Aphantasia- no mental images, inablity to voluntairly visualuize mental images

-Imagery ability can impact memory, learning, and creativity 

-People with aphantasia cannot conjure images in their “mind’s eye” but can still imagine and process information in other ways, such as through words, sounds, or concepts

spatial relationship

ablity to understand and reason about spatial reasoning and objects in space

key aspects: visualization, mental rotation, spatial orientation, spatial perception, and spatial transformation

visualization

visual imagery, visual imagination creating mental images

mental rotation

Mentally rotating objects to understand how they would appear from a different perspective 

Steps of mental rotation: 

Create a mental image of an object 

-rotate the object mentally clockwise or counterclockwise 

-make comparison to another object 

-decide if the objects are same or not 

-record decision and time to complete

spatial orientation

understanding one’s position and orientation in space, and the postion of objects relative to oneself and each other

spatial perception

-accurately perceving the size, shape and location of objects

spatial transformation

visualizing how objects can be moved, transformed, or combined in space

Pavio’s dual coding theory

-two systems for representing knowledge: verbal and visual 

-Concrete words (apple) are easier to remember than abstract  ones (justice) 

-imagery enhances memory by using both codes

imagery in the brain

-conduced an fMRI study showing that V1(primary visual cortex) is also active during imagery tasks 

-similar regions are active for seeing and imaging 

why does visual imagery matter?

-healing physical pain and or injuries

-useful in CBT( gudied imagery for relaxation, exposure therapy)

-sports psychology-mental rehersal improves perfromance

-used in mnemonic device to improve (method of loci)

Can we trust what we “see” in our mind’s eye?

-interefere with emotional sensitvity of the event

-eyewitness testimony is unreliable the impact of time pass

-halluncinations