Cog: imagery (copy)

true/false: implanting memories can be positive/useful

true

• ex. teaching kids about liking veggies (telling them lies so they think they like them)

Imagery: reasoning

mental maps, mental rotation, spatial navigation

• bill is smarter than ed, john is not smarter than ed, who is smartest

  • we draw this out in our head to make it make sense

what do we use imagery for?

• reasoning

• learning and comprehension

• to treat trauma

imagery: learning and comprehension

• skill learning: practicing moves

• PTSD: creating new, better endings to traumatic memories, implanting positive memories, tweaking stories from trauma to reduce negative feelings

  • these replace the traumatic endings/aspects in LTM

dual-coding theory

concrete words easier to remember (imagine visual) than abstract words (harder visual)

• table vs freedom

• table would benefit from dual-coding (likely bc we are able to dual code it better with 2 modalities bc it’s double the representation)

  • ex. table = invision a table AND think about what it is

harder to use dual coding with abstract

Shepherd & Metzler: mental rotation task

would show participants these photos and ask if they were the same figure

then they would measure how much they would have to rotate it and how long it took them to do that

• these studies lead to analog theory (the way you represent something in your mind, to scale: 1 to 1)

Analog View: Kosslyn (1977)

on map would look at 2 locations and attempt to determine how far apart they were to scale

• further distance apart → longer response time

the way you represent imagery in your mind is the same process if you were to do it externally

• might be smaller in mind but process is similar

Finke: 5 principles

1. images and percepts are functionally analogous (what you perceive, relate to each other)

2. images have spatial equivalence to pictures or objects (scaled down, keep ratios the same)

3. implicit (automatic) encoding of spatial info

4. images have transformational equivalence to percepts (different angles)

5. image will have structural equivalence and spatial relations of object

modalitity-specific interference

if we use the same neural areas in visual imagery as we do in perception, the 2 tasks should interfere w one another (but not an auditory task)

• if 2 tasks w same neural areas, they will interfere

brain mechanisms in perception and imagery

visual imagery uses same brain areas as visual perception

• perceptual areas show activity corresponding to mental imagery

• haptic

  • musicians practicing in their head show activity in motor cortex (the same as when they actually do it)

  • somatosensory cortex active when participants asked to imagine feeling an object (same as when they actually feel)

• auditory

  • participants ‘filling in’ song gaps show activity in brain (temporal auditory cortex) but only w familiar songs

propositional view of imagery (Pylyshyn 1987)

evidence not just for visual processing or verbal, but both

• overwhelming evidence for visual

abstract processing links them - propositional

• images are not the same as percepts, does not contain the same amount of detail (how many stripes does your tiger have?)

• or to rearrange as easily (ie due or rabbit? 5 sec exposure, cant do it w just imagery)

perhaps floor effects

• box 7.5 finke (1989): imagery reorganization task

1. imagine k, place square on left, put circle in square and rotate 90 degrees (TV)

2. imagine D, rotate 90 degrees, place J on bottom (umbrella)

synesthesia

music appearing as colors → dual modality

• can support musicians

• some examples of this in our own language:

  • someone is “hot/delicious”

  • personality is “icey”

  • ex. different words have different flavors

• this may be on a spectrum more than you have it or you don’t