Imagery

1. Langston, PSY 4040 Cognitive Psychology Notes 5 Imagery

2. An Exercise • Imagine a dinner plate. • It has spaghetti around the top rim. • There is a carrot in the middle, pointing down. • There are two fried eggs under the spaghetti. • There’s a banana along the bottom rim. • What do you see?

3. Questions • What is a mental image? • How is it like reality, how is it different? • Does an image use the same neural hardware as experience? • Depending on how we answer the first set of questions, how do we know what’s real?

4. Architecture Recall our box model: Sensory Store Filter Pattern Recognition Selection STM LTM Input (Environment) Response

5. Articulatory Loop Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad Central Executive Working Memory We modified short-term memory into working memory:

6. Imagery • Imagery is going to cover more than one box. • In working memory, it’s going to be in the visuo-spatial sketchpad. • It’s also going to influence long-term memory.

7. Plan of Attack • How can we assess imagery (mostly a working memory issue)? • How does imagery affect memory (mostly a long-term memory issue)? • What are images (a test of the cognitive psychology paradigm)? • How do we maintain contact with reality?

8. Assessing Imagery • Spatial ability is somewhat independent of verbal ability. We can test it using methods similar to operation span or digit span. • I have two examples of operation span-type tasks:

9. Assessing Imagery • Cube folding: Will the arrows touch if you fold these into cubes?

10. Assessing Imagery • Cube task: Where does the X end up?

11. Assessing Imagery • Note how both of these involve storage and processing. • In a college population, we see more variability in spatial ability than in verbal ability. Why?

12. Imagery and Memory • Images in working memory: • Mental rotation tasks suggest that you use images in working memory in an analog way. • Shepard and Metzler (1972): Rotate images, look at response time.

13. Imagery and Memory • Shepard & Metzler (1972): • A: “Same” rotated in picture plane. • B: “Same” rotated in depth. • C: Different. Shepard & Metzler (1972, p. 702)

14. Imagery and Memory • Shepard & Metzler (1972): Shepard & Metzler (1972, p. 702)

15. Imagery and Memory • Images in working memory: • We can look at our CogLab results here…

16. Imagery and Memory • Images in working memory: • Other tasks also suggest analog use of images in working memory. • For example, imagine these times on an analog clock face. Which of each pair has a bigger angle between the hands? • 4:10 and 9:23 • 3:20 and 7:25 • 2:45 and 1:05 • 3:15 and 5:30

17. Imagery and Memory • Images in working memory: • Scanning tasks show that the farther apart two things are on an image, the longer it takes to mentally scan from one to the other (e.g., Kosslyn, Ball, & Reiser, 1978).

18. Imagery and Memory • Kosslyn et al. (1978): • Memorize this map… • There’s a hut, a tree, a rock, a lake, a well, sand, and grass. • Hear the name of an object, then another. Imagine a black dot zipping from one to the other on the shortest path. • Push a button when it gets there. Kosslyn et al. (1978, p. 51)

19. Imagery and Memory • Kosslyn et al. (1978): Kosslyn et al. (1978, p. 52)

20. Imagery and Memory • Kosslyn et al. (1978): Kosslyn et al. (1978, p. 52)

21. Imagery and Memory • Images in working memory: • We’re eventually going to have to address some problems with knowing if people are really using images, or if there are task demands that make the results come out this way. • Did Kosslyn et al.’s (1978) instructions cause the effect? Yes.

22. Imagery and Memory • Kosslyn et al. (1978): Kosslyn et al. (1978, p. 54)

23. Imagery and Memory • Kosslyn et al. (1978): Kosslyn et al. (1978, p. 54)

24. Imagery and Memory • Kosslyn et al. (1978): Kosslyn et al. (1978, p. 54)

25. Imagery and Memory • Images in working memory: • Kosslyn et al. (1978) say it shows evidence for imagery, but that people don’t always use it. • Which is right?

26. Imagery and Memory • Learning pictures (long-term memory): • Shepard (1967): Present 612 pictures or words with a recognition test. After 2 hours approximately 100% accuracy for pictures, 88% for words. After a week about 88% for both. • Standing (1977): Learn 1,000 words, 1,000 simple pictures, or 1,000 bizarre pictures. After 2 days recognition memory was 61.5% for words, 77% for pictures, and 88% for bizarre pictures. • Summation: Memory for pictures is better than memory for words, especially early on.

27. Imagery and Memory • Learning with images: • If pictures are better, will forming images help memory? Yes. • Let’s start with a demonstration of the importance of the concrete-abstract dimension…

28. Imagery and Memory • Learning with images: • We’ll consider mnemonic devices (memory tricks) in the long-term memory unit, but let’s look at an imagery-based one here. • Demonstration of the peg-word system: • Learn your system by heart. • Use the system to learn a list. • For example, if “one is a horse” and you need to buy floor polish, you could imagine a horse polishing the floor. For recall, you say “one is a horse” and that’s your cue.

29. Imagery and Memory • Learning with images: • Paivio (1969) proposed a dual-code hypothesis to explain results like these. • Concrete words and pictures and effective peg-word systems generate two codes in memory, a verbal code and an image code. • Abstract words and ineffective peg-word systems only generate a verbal code. • Having two codes gives you a greater variety of cues that you could use to recall, and more chances to recall.

30. Imagery and Memory • Learning with images: • More dual-code stuff. • A symbolic distance effect occurs when it’s easier to make judgments about items that are farther apart on a dimension than it is to make judgments about items that are close on a dimension. • For example: • The fly is bigger than the flea. • The mouse is bigger than the fly. • The rabbit is bigger than the mouse. • The dog is bigger than the rabbit. • The horse is bigger than the dog.

31. Imagery and Memory • Learning with images: • Symbolic distance effect questions (true or false): • The fly is bigger than the flea. • The horse is bigger than the mouse. • The rabbit is bigger than the dog. • The mouse is bigger than the fly. • The dog is bigger than the horse. • Flea-Fly-Mouse-Rabbit-Dog-Horse

32. Imagery and Memory • Learning with images: • More dual-code stuff. • Picture symbolic distance effect tasks are easier than verbal symbolic distance effect tasks (pictures access the system directly, verbal has to be recoded). • It’s pretty odd that the exact sentence you saw before (The fly is bigger than the flea) takes longer to verify than a new sentence (The horse is bigger than the mouse) if you don’t have images.

33. Structure of Images • Images could be: • Propositions: It’s essentially a verbal/symbolic thing. The feeling that you have an image is epiphenomenal, there isn’t really an image. • Pictures in the head: Images are what they feel like, a picture in the head whose properties are like the properties of the real thing. • Perceptual processing: Images use the same perceptual hardware you use to see, just not so much. • We’ll consider each.

34. Structure of Images • Images could be: • Propositions • We’ll think about this later…

35. Structure of Images • Images could be: • Pictures in the head • It’s obviously not a literal picture. For example, a picture of a tomato is red, if you have an image of one, it’s not actually red. • Can we see if images and pictures are different? Yes.

36. Structure of Images • Images could be: • Pictures in the head • Pictures support processing that images don’t. • For example, you can reverse pictures, but most people report that reversing images is very hard (relative to with a picture).

37. Structure of Images • Images could be: • Pictures in the head • Pictures support processing that images don’t. • For example, it’s harder to decompose an image than it is to decompose a picture. • Let’s try a couple of examples:

38. Structure of Images • Images could be: • Pictures in the head • Get a clear mental image of the picture below:

39. Structure of Images • Images could be: • Pictures in the head • Are the following shapes in the picture you just saw?

40. Structure of Images • Images could be: • Pictures in the head

41. Structure of Images • Images could be: • Pictures in the head • Get a clear mental image of the picture below:

42. Structure of Images • Images could be: • Pictures in the head • Are the following shapes in the picture you just saw?

43. Structure of Images • Images could be: • Pictures in the head

44. Structure of Images • Images could be: • Pictures in the head • On the other hand, you can reinterpret images, but you have to be able to overcome low-level grouping processes (Finke, Pinker, & Farah, 1989). • For example: • Think of a lower-case k. • Imagine a circle around it, just not touching it. • Now, cut off the bottom half of the k. • What do you have?

45. Structure of Images • Images could be: • Use of the perceptual apparatus • If images use visual hardware and words don’t, verbal and image information should not interfere. If they all use the same hardware, you should see interference. • Brooks (1968) looked at this. Let’s look at his task:

46. Structure of Images • Images could be: • Use of the perceptual apparatus • Brooks’ (1968) task: Present block letter and answer sheet. Point to the Y or N depending on whether the corner is at an extreme part of the figure. Y N Y N Y N Y N Y N Y N

47. Structure of Images • Images could be: • Use of the perceptual apparatus • Brooks’ (1968) task: Participants memorized the figure and then answered yes and no by pointing. They could also just make verbal responses. Pointing made it really hard. • On the other hand, when the task was to memorize a list of sentences and make judgments about the words, pointing was easier. • This suggests that images are using visual/perceptual hardware.

48. Structure of Images • Images could be: • Use of the perceptual apparatus • On the other hand, images don’t seem to give after-effects. • Get a clear mental image of this flag. • What should happen if you maintain the image for a minute?

50. Structure of Images • Images could be: • Use of the perceptual apparatus • Now stare at the dot for a minute and see what happens.