Mental-Imagery

Definition: Imagery is the mental representation of things not currently perceived by the senses.
- Involves images for objects, events, and settings.
- Example: Recall your first experiences at your university (sights, sounds, smells).
- Can represent things never experienced, like traveling down the Amazon River.
- Can also depict non-existent things in the mind.
- Involves mental representations across sensory modalities (e.g., sound like a fire alarm, favorite song).
- Guided-imagery techniques can evoke mental images.

Concept: Mental imagery (visualization and mental rehearsal) resembles perceptual experience without relevant stimuli.
- Defined as a mental representation of a nonpresent object or event.

Overview: Proposes two storage systems – imaginal and verbal.
- Information can be coded in either or both.
- Each channel has its limitations; difficulty in managing multiple auditory or visual cues can vary with task expertise.

Example: A documentary showing images of rainforest life with narration helps learning as visual and verbal information does not compete.
- Multimedia presentations need to be balanced; too many visuals can overwhelm the viewer.

According to Paivio:
- Mental images are analogue codes: they represent physical stimuli ( e.g., trees, rivers).
- Verbal representations are symbolic codes: do not resemble the represented concept (e.g., the numeral "9" for nineness).
- Analogous to watches displaying time in numbers; words are arbitrary symbols representing ideas (e.g., justice, peace).

Definition: Internal representations of the physical environment, focusing on spatial relationships.

Landmark Knowledge: Features of locations based on imaginal and propositional representations.
Route-Road Knowledge: Pathways between locations, involving procedural and declarative knowledge (such as giving directions).
Survey Knowledge: Estimated distances and spatial relationships represented imaginally or propositionally.

Example: Knowing one's house is south of the university demonstrates survey knowledge.

Definition: A condition where one sensation is experienced in multiple modalities (e.g., hearing a sound while seeing a color).
Characteristics: Neurologically based phenomena, where stimulation of one pathway leads to experiences in another.
- Individuals with this experience are known as synesthetes.

Hearing a word and tasting food.
Hearing sounds and seeing shapes or patterns.
Feeling an object and hearing a sound, or feeling touch when seeing another person touched.

Spectrum of colors and numbers showing how different sensations are connected in synesthetic experiences.