PSYC2050 Imagery and Foresight Practice Flashcards

A set of vocabulary-style flashcards covering the theories, experimental evidence, and psychological implications of mental imagery and foresight based on the PSYC2050 lecture notes.

Imagery

The mental representation of sensory experiences without direct external stimulation.

Dual Coding Hypothesis

A theory proposed by Paivio suggesting that information is stored in two systems: verbal code and imaginal (visual) code.

Concrete Word Advantage

The finding that words like "table" or "dog" are remembered better than abstract words because they can be stored in both verbal and imaginal systems.

Conceptual-Propositional Hypothesis

The theory by Anderson & Bower that mental representations are not picture-like but are stored as meanings, concepts, and relationships (gist).

Functional Equivalence Hypothesis

A theory by Shepard & Kosslyn stating that imagery and perception use many of the same cognitive and neural mechanisms.

Top-down processing

The cognitive process associated with imagery, whereas perception is characterized as bottom-up processing.

Size Effect

Kosslyn's finding that questions about features of animal images (like a frog) are answered faster when the animal is imagined as large rather than small.

Image Scanning Study

Research showing a linear relationship where greater actual distances on a fictional map correspond to longer imagined travel times, suggesting mental images preserve spatial properties.

Rotation Aftereffects

An effect where looking at an anticlockwise spinning disk slows mental anticlockwise rotation and speeds clockwise rotation, proving perception influences imagery.

Segal & Fuscella Study

A study demonstrating modality-specific interference, where visual imagery interfered with a visual detection task but not an auditory one.

Visual Neglect Syndrome

A condition resulting from right parietal lobe damage where patients ignore one side of both physical visual space and imagined space, such as Milan's Piazza del Duomo.

Occipital Lobectomy

A surgical procedure explored by Farah where the reduction of the visual field leads to "Tunnel Imagery," reducing the size of the mental "stage."

Hyperphantasia

A condition characterized by very vivid imagery and stronger activity in the occipital lobe (visual cortex).

Aphantasia

A condition where individuals display little or no mental imagery and have much weaker occipital activity.

Shepard & Metzler Study

A study on mental rotation of $3D$ objects showing that reaction time increases linearly with the angle of rotation (from $0^\text{o}$ to $180^\text{o}$).

Demand Characteristics

Pylyshyn's criticism that participants in mental rotation studies might simply be guessing what researchers expect them to do.

Mental Time Travel (MTT)

The ability to mentally move across time, connecting events across minutes, days, and years.

Episodic Memory

The capacity for reliving past events, such as remembering a birthday from the previous year.

Episodic Foresight

The capacity for pre-living future events, such as imagining a birthday that has not yet happened.

Creative Reconstruction

The process by which memory modifies details and fills gaps, allowing humans to recombine actors and actions into new future scenarios.

Behavioural Flexibility

A benefit of foresight that allows humans to pursue distant goals and use "if-then" strategies to prepare for various possibilities.

Costs of Foresight

Negative psychological impacts of thinking about the future, specifically listed as stress, anxiety, depression, and greed.