Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience, 3rd Edition

290 • CHAPTER 10 Visual Imagery

Think ABOUT IT

1. Look at an object for a minute; then look away, create
   a mental image of it, and draw a sketch of the object
   based on your mental image. Then draw a sketch of the
   same object while you are looking at it. How do the two
   sketches differ? What kinds of information about the
   object were you able to include in the sketch that was
   based on your mental image? What information was
   omitted, compared to the sketch you created by looking
   at the object?


2. Write a description of an object as you are looking at
   it. Then compare the written description with the infor-
   mation you can obtain by looking at the object or at a
   picture of the object. Is it true that “a picture is worth a
   thousand words”? How does your comparison of writ-
   ten and visual representations relate to the discussion

of propositional versus depictive representations in this

chapter?

3. Try using one of the techniques described at the end of
   this chapter to create images that represent things you
   have to do later today or during the coming week. Then,
   after some time passes (anywhere from an hour to a few
   days), check to see whether you can retrieve the memo-
   ries for these images and if you can remember what they
   stand for.


4. Describe the connection between the description of the
   visual process in Figure 10.20 and the result of Ganis’s
   fMRI experiment shown in Figure 10.15, in which brain
   activation caused by imagery and by perception was
   compared.

If You WANT TO KNOW MORE

1. Auditory imagery. Auditory imagery occurs when you
   mentally rehearse a telephone number or when a par-
   ticular song keeps running through your mind. Recent
   research has demonstrated a connection between audi-
   tory imagery and brain activity.

Kraemer, D. J. M., Macrae, C. N., Green, A. E., & Kelly, W. M.

(2005). Sound of silence activates auditory cortex. Nature,

434 , 158.

Zatorre, R. J., Halpern, A. R., Perry, D. W., Meyer, E., & Evans,

A. C. (1996). Hearing in the mind’s ear: A PET investigation

of musical imagery and perception. Journal of Cognitive

Neuroscience, 8, 29–46.

2. Visual imagery. Although we have discussed visual imag-
   ery extensively in this chapter, it is worth looking at

Stephen Kosslyn’s books on the topic. His latest one is

the following.

Kosslyn, S., Thompson, W. L., & Ganis, G. (2006). The case for

mental imagery. New York: Oxford University Press.

3. Mechanical reasoning and working memory. The relation-
   ship between solving mechanical problems, imagery,
   and working memory has been studied by determining
   how placing a load on the visuospatial sketch pad com-
   ponent of working memory affects the ability to solve
   these problems. These experiments are analogous to the
   Demonstration on page 135 of Chapter 5.

Sims, V. K., & Hegarty, M. (1997). Mental animation in the

visuospatial sketch pad: Evidence from dual task studies.

Memory & Cognition, 25, 321–333.

6. Parallels between perception and imagery have been dem-
   onstrated physiologically by the following methods: (a)
   recording from single neurons (imagery neurons); (b)
   brain imaging (demonstrating overlapping activation in
   the brain); (c) transcranial magnetic stimulation experi-
   ments (comparing the effect of brain inactivation on per-
   ception and imagery); and (d) neuropsychological case
   studies (removal of visual cortex affects image size; uni-
   lateral neglect).


7. There is also physiological evidence for differences
   between imagery and perception. This evidence includes
   (a) differences in areas of the brain activated and
   (b) brain damage causing dissociations between percep-
   tion and imagery.
   8. Most psychologists, taking all of the above evidence into
   account, have concluded that imagery is closely related to
   perception and shares some (but not all) mechanisms.
   9. The use of imagery can improve memory in a number of
   ways: (a) visualizing interacting images; (b) organization
   using the method of loci; and (c) associating items with
   nouns using the pegword technique.
   10. Problems involving mechanical reasoning can be solved
   using either mental simulation or rule-based approaches.
   Experiments with the water-pouring problem show it is
   unlikely that tacit knowledge is involved in using imagery
   to solve this problem. Experiments with the pulley prob-
   lem indicate that people may direct their attention to indi-
   vidual components of the problem, one after the other.

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