Chapter 7

1. Chapter 7 Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps

2. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • not directly observable • fades quickly • imagery debate • perception vs. language • analog code (depictive representation/pictorial representation) • propositional code (descriptive representation)

3. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • How to study mental imagery? • If a mental image resembles a physical object, then people should make judgments about a mental image in the same way that they make judgments about the corresponding physical object.

4. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • In Depth: Visual Imagery and Rotation • Shepard and Metzler's Research • Demonstration 7.2 • same/different task using pairs of line drawings • two- vs. three-dimensions • reaction time to decide same/different • Decision time is influenced by the amount of rotation required to match the figures. • Large rotations take more time.

7. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • In Depth: Visual Imagery and Rotation • Subsequent Research on Mental Rotation • Research with other stimuli (e.g., letters of the alphabet) also finds clear relationship between amount of rotation and reaction time. • Takeda and coauthors (2010) • handedness • upright vs. upside-down pictures

8. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • In Depth: Visual Imagery and Rotation • Subsequent Research on Mental Rotation • Other research • age • American Sign Language (ASL) • Overall strong support for the analog-coding approach

9. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • In Depth: Visual Imagery and Rotation • Cognitive Neuroscience Research on Mental Rotation Tasks • Kosslyn, Thompson and coauthors (2001) • rotate geometric figures with hands vs. watch an electric motor rotate the figures • perform Shepard and Metzler same/different task rotating the figures mentally

10. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • In Depth: Visual Imagery and Rotation • Cognitive Neuroscience Research on Mental Rotation Tasks • Kosslyn, Thompson and coauthors (2001) (continued) • PET scan—Participants who had rotated the original geometric figure with their hands, now showed activity in the primary motor cortex; participants who only watched did not.

11. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • In Depth: Visual Imagery and Rotation • Cognitive Neuroscience Research on Mental Rotation Tasks • Role of Instructions • standard instructions activated the right frontal lobes and parietal lobes • "rotate self" instructions activated the left temporal lobe and a different part of the motor cortex • Implications for people recovering from a stroke

12. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Visual Imagery and Distance • Stephen Kosslyn • time to scan the distance between two points in a mental image • experimenter expectancy

13. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Visual Imagery and Shape • Paivio (1978) • hands on imaginary clock • high-imagery vs. low-imagery participants • Shepard and Chipman (1970) • more complex shapes • U.S. states

14. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Conclusions About The Characteristics of Mental Images (so far) • When people rotate a visual image, a large rotation takes them longer, just as they take longer when making a large rotation with a physical stimulus. • People make distance judgments in a similar fashion for mental images and physical stimuli.

15. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Conclusions About The Characteristics of Mental Images (so far) • People make decisions about shape in a similar fashion for mental images and physical stimuli; this conclusion holds true for both simple shapes (angles formed by hands on a clock) and complex shapes (geographic regions, like Colorado or West Virginia).

16. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Visual Imagery and Interference • Mental imagery can interfere with visual perception. • Segal and Fusella (1970) • create visual image • detect physical stimulus • People had more problems detecting the physical stimulus when the image and the physical stimulus were in the same sensory mode.

17. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Visual Imagery and Interference • Mast and colleagues (1999) • Imagined lines and real lines produced similar distortions in participants' judgments about the orientation of the line segment.

18. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Visual Imagery and Ambiguous Figures • Demonstration 7.3 • When creating a mental image of an ambiguous figure, people sometimes use analog codes and sometimes use propositional codes.

19. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Visual Imagery and Ambiguous Figures • Reed (1974) • decide whether a pattern is a portion of a design seen earlier • Chance performance indicated that people could not have stored mental pictures. • People must store these pictures as descriptions, in propositional codes.

20. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Visual Imagery and Ambiguous Figures • Chambers and Reisberg (1985) • form mental image of ambiguous figure (e.g., the rabbit-duck figure) • ask participants to provide reinterpretation of ambiguous figure • draw figure from memory • try to reinterpret physical stimulus

22. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Visual Imagery and Ambiguous Figures • Chambers and Reisberg (1985) (continued) • strong verbal propositional code can dominate over an analog code • It's easy to reverse an image while you are looking at an ambiguous physical picture, but reversing a mental image is difficult.

23. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Explanations for Visual Imagery • The Imagery Debate • Analog Perspective • create a mental image of an object that closely resembles the actual, perceptual image on your retina • responses to mental images are frequently similar to responses to physical objects • majority of research supports this position • no one argues that vision and mental imagery are identical

24. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Explanations for Visual Imagery • The Imagery Debate • Propositional Perspective • mental images stored in an abstract, language-like form that does not physically resemble the original stimulus • Pylyshyn • mental images not a necessary component of imagery • differences between perceptual experiences and mental images

25. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Explanations for Visual Imagery • The Imagery Debate • Most researchers favor an analog code. • For some stimuli and several specific tasks, people may use a propositional code.

26. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Explanations for Visual Imagery • Neuroscience Research Comparing Visual Imagery and Visual Perception • Mental rotation tasks activate parts of the brain's temporal lobe, as well as the motor cortex. • Mental imagery relies exclusively on top-down processing.

27. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Explanations for Visual Imagery • Neuroscience Research Comparing Visual Imagery and Visual Perception • Visual perception activates the rods and cones in the retina. • It takes about 1/10 of a second longer to create a visual image than to register a visual perception.

28. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Explanations for Visual Imagery • Neuroscience Research Comparing Visual Imagery and Visual Perception • Kosslyn (2004) • Visual imagery activates 70-90% of the same brain regions that are activated during visual perception. • Brain damage in the most basic region of the visual cortex leads to parallel problems in both visual perception and visual imagery.

29. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Explanations for Visual Imagery • Neuroscience Research Comparing Visual Imagery and Visual Perception • Kosslyn (2004) (continued) • Some individuals with brain damage cannot distinguish between characteristics in visual perception and visual imagery. • People with prosopagnosia cannot use mental imagery to distinguish between faces.

30. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Individual Differences: Gender Comparisons in Spatial Ability • Most gender differences in cognitive abilities are small. • meta-analysis • a statistical method for combining numerous studies on a single topic • effect size (d)

31. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Individual Differences: Gender Comparisons in Spatial Ability • meta-analysis (continued) • meta-analyses of gender differences in verbal ability find effect sizes "close to zero" or "small"; gender similarities • meta-analyses of gender differences in mathematical ability find effect sizes "close to zero"; gender similarities

32. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Individual Differences: Gender Comparisons in Spatial Ability • meta-analysis (continued) • meta-analyses of gender differences in spatial ability find effect sizes ranging from "small" to "large"

33. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Individual Differences: Gender Comparisons in Spatial Ability • Spatial ability represents several different skills. • spatial visualization: "small" gender differences • spatial perception:"moderate" gender differences • mental rotation: "moderate" to "large" gender differences

34. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Individual Differences: Gender Comparisons in Spatial Ability • What do these differences mean? • some studies report no gender differences • effects of task instructions • effects of training • experiences with toys and sports that emphasize spatial skills

35. The Characteristics of Visual Imagery • Individual Differences: Gender Comparisons in Spatial Ability • This one area of cognitive gender differences can be modified by providing girls with experience in spatial activities.

36. The Characteristics of Auditory Imagery • auditory imagery • the mental representation of sounds when the sounds are not physically present • examples: laughter, song, car sounds, animals • importance of auditory processes • vividness

37. The Characteristics of Auditory Imagery • Auditory Imagery and Pitch • pitch—a characteristic of a sound stimulus that can be arranged on a scale from low to high • Intons-Peterson and coauthors (1992) • "traveling" the distance between two auditory stimuli • cat purring, door slamming, police siren • The distance between two actual tones is correlated with the distance between the two imagined tones.

38. The Characteristics of Auditory Imagery • Auditory Imagery and Timbre • timbre—a characteristic of sound describing the quality of a tone (e.g., flute vs. trumpet) • Halpern and coauthors (2004) • auditory imagery for the timbre of musical instruments • young adults with musical training • similarity ratings • perception condition vs. imagined condition

39. The Characteristics of Auditory Imagery • Auditory Imagery and Timbre • Halpern and coauthors (2004) (continued) • Ratings for timbre perception and timbre imagery are highly correlated. • Cognitive representations for the timbre of actual musical instruments were quite similar to the cognitive representations for the timbre of the imagined musical instruments.

40. Cognitive Maps • cognitive map • mental representation of geographic information, including the environment that surrounds us • relationships among objects

41. Cognitive Maps • Background Information About Cognitive Maps • Roskos-Ewaldsen and colleagues (1998) • Demonstration 7.5: Learning from a Map • survey knowledge—the relationship among locations that we acquire by directly learning a map or by repeatedly exploring an environment • orientation of map

42. Cognitive Maps • Background Information About Cognitive Maps • Roskos-Ewaldsen and colleagues (1998) (continued) • Judgments are easier when your mental map and the physical map have matching orientations.

43. Cognitive Maps • Background Information About Cognitive Maps • Cognitive maps are generally accurate. • Errors can be traced to rational strategies that are based on systematic distortions of reality. • heuristic—general problem-solving strategy that usually produces a correct solution . . . but not always

44. Cognitive Maps • Cognitive Maps and Distance • Estimating the distance between two known points. • Often distorted by: • number of intervening cities • category membership • landmarks

45. Cognitive Maps • Cognitive Maps and Distance • Distance Estimates and Number of Intervening Cities • Thorndyke (1981) • study map of hypothetical region until you can reproduce it • 0, 1, 2, or 3 other cities along the route between two cities • estimate the distance between specified pairs of cities

46. Cognitive Maps • Cognitive Maps and Distance • Distance Estimates and Number of Intervening Cities • Thorndyke (1981) (continued) • The number of intervening cities had a clear-cut influence on distance estimates.

47. Cognitive Maps • Cognitive Maps and Distance • Distance Estimates and Category Membership • The categories we create can have a large influence on our distance estimates. • Hirtle and Mascolo (1986) • learn hypothetical map of a town • estimate distance between pairs of locations

48. Cognitive Maps • Cognitive Maps and Distance • Distance Estimates and Category Membership • Hirtle and Mascolo (1986) (continued) • People tended to shift each location closer to other sites that belonged to the same category (e.g., government buildings).

49. Cognitive Maps • Cognitive Maps and Distance • Distance Estimates and Category Membership • Friedman and colleagues • North American cities • students from Canada, United States, Mexico • international borders

50. Cognitive Maps • Cognitive Maps and Distance • Distance Estimates and Category Membership • Mishra & Mishra (2010)—border bias • vacation home in Oregon or Washington • earthquake • When people hear about an earthquake, they prefer to select a home in a different state, rather than a home that is equally close, but in the same state as the earthquake.