Mental Imagery

1. Mental Imagery • The Nature of mental imagery: ”Analog-Propositional” debate (N.Thomas) • Analog – picture –like imagery: Spatial properties of imagery: • Roger Shepard: ”Mental Rotation”of images • Stephen Kosslyn: ”Mental Scanning”of visual images • Evidence of the spatial properties of mental imagery shown in the studies by these two scientists 2) Propositional – descriptive imagery (Pylyshyn) Descriptions of objects in mentalese (language of thought) Jonna Kokko • 1) Backgrounds: • 20th century discussions: • Verbal mediation theory: language determines or mediates thought • Perceptual dominance theory: imagistic structures are dominant • Common code or Propositional models: Information, perceptual or linguistic, represented in an abstract, amodal code • Dual Coding (Paivio): Nonverbal and verbal information encoded in symbolic form in separate systems specialized for such representation, and connected by a complex system of referential relations The theory of the Mind’s eye and pictorial nature of mental image abandoned in the 20th century

2. 3) Reading and mental imagery: Consider reading verbal instructions, descriptions, prose etc. without the ability to generate mental imagery.. Reading comprehension: ”Imagery strategies” to enhance reading comprehension. Do not necessarily work always. High-imagery sentences easier to grasp than low-imagery? The importance of the background knowledge Vividness of Visual Imagery: Individual differences Consequences on leisure time reading? Consequences on comprehension? Most often reported lack of mental imagery among scientists and academicians. Why? More advanced ability to process low-imagery, abstract information? • ”Imagination.. makes it possible to think outside the confines of the present perceptual reality.” –N.J.T. Thomas • 2) Mental imagery and language in human cognition • Thinking: based on language or mental imagery or something else? • The role of mental imagery in: • Memory – mnemonics • imagination • prediction • problem solving • etc.

3. Neurological basis of mental imagery in reading (M.A. Just et al. 2003) • Distinction between processing high-imagery versus low-imagery sentences • Low-imagery sentences: • More semantic-related processing in the Left Temporal Area • High-imagery sentences: • More visuo-spatial processing in the Left Intraparietal Sulcus • Partly different areas in the brain activated. • There is a distinction in congnitive processing of abstract and concrete information • Listening comprehension a better modality to receive imagery-laden information • Reading comprehension modality better to receive abstract information. • More natural and effortless to generate visual mental images when listening to narratives • The reason the overlap of the activation of some parts of the brain used for both interpretation of perception and mental imagery • 4) Some questions and ideas: • Synesthesia – a non-linguistic form of thinking? • More common among indigenous peoples without written language • The modern culture highly reliant on written language • logical abstract thinking • People lose the ability for synesthesia through learning more linguistic-based thinking • dormant in all people • How do people react to contradiction between visual and written message? • Does the visual message ”win” usually?