Chapter 7 Memory Strategies and Metacognition 1 Why is the topic of mental imagery is important and interesting to study a Mental Imagery Pg 230 Know why it is challenging to study and understand a basic assumption for studying it The mental representation of stimuli when those stimuli aren t physically present Sensory receptors don t receive any input when a mental image is created You can have a mental image for any sensory experience b Mental imagery and perception share many characteristics but they have key separating features i During perception sensory information is registered by the sensory systems early after the sensory information is registered features of the stimulus are detected beginning bottom up processing which then moves onto to more complex processing and is then matched to information in LTM 1 Perception requires the use of bottom up and top down processing ii Mental imagery is only top down processing because there is no stimuli to be registered 1 Mental imagery is knowledge driven its influenced by previously stored information that s in LTM that we use to create internal images of sounds and objects 2 Mental imagery is highly associated with other cognitive processes not just every day life c Cognitive Maps Pg 252 information including a persons surrounding environment Emphasizes out mental images of the relationship among objects the mental representation of geographic i In general cognitive maps represent areas that are too large to be seen in a single glance so we create a cognitive map by integrating the information that we ve acquired from many different view points d Why Mental Imagery i We use mental imagery for a wide variety of everyday tasks we frequently face situations where we have to use and rely on our mental imagery 1 2 If a kid and his mom touring the school asked you how to get to Westcott you would have to create a cognitive map to explain it to them from where you currently were If you lost your keys in your bedroom while searching for them the only way you would know that your coffee cup wasn t your keys was through mental imagery e Studying Mental Imagery ii Understanding mental imagery processes provides connections to other cognitive phenomena such as perception memory and thinking 1 Example How does mental imagery interact with perception and memory Which I actually answered above 2 How can memory be improved by mental Imagery Method of Loci is one example i Difficult to study because its not directly observable and fades quickly you cant exactly just project a mental image so everyone can see it or draw it in perfect exact detail because that would mean you would also have to include the other images going on in your head as well which would then cause you to lose focus on the big picture and so forth ii SO to study mental imagery we basically make an assumption If a mental image resembles a physical object then people should be able to make judgments about the mental image the same way they make judgments about the corresponding physical object 1 Example we should be able to rotate a mental image in the same way that we can rotate a physical object next question 2 Know Mental Rotation Task and the finding in Shepard and Metzler s study know the findings in subsequent studies a Reasoning behind the mental rotation task hold an object in your hands it ll take you longer to rotate it 180 degrees than it would 90 degrees If mental images operate the same way it would take longer to mentally rotate an object 180 degrees than it would 90 degrees b Shepard and Metzler had participant s judge 1600 pairs of line drawings the same thing we did for lab with rotating the 3 D shapes but this was just lines The dependent variable was reaction time to decide if the lines were the same or if they were different i The results show that reaction time is a function of rotation it takes longer to determine if the lines are the same or different depending on the degree of mental rotation required c Subsequent research on mental rotation different kinds of stimuli were used but the concept remains i Takeda had participants look at pictures of a human hand and asked them to identify if it was a left hand or a right hand 1 The reaction time was still a function of rotation ii Elderly people perform more slowly on a mental rotation task that younger people but response time is still a function of rotation 1 But age isn t correlated with other imagery skills such as sense of direction or ability to scan mental images iii Deaf individuals who are fluent in ASL are especially skilled in looking at an arrangement of objects in a scene and mentally rotation that scene by 180 degrees 1 This is because they have extensive experience in watching a narrator produce a sign meaning they have to perform these kinds of rotations frequently when a narrator is producing a sign they re hands are outward towards you but when you produce the sign you don t have the same point of view so you have to mentally rotate the sign being made by 180 degrees d Cognitive neuroscience research on mental rotation tasks i Kosslyn Thompson and colleagues examined motor cortex activation in mental rotation of geometric figures One group physically rotated a geometric shape and the second group watched the shaped rotated by an electric motor 1 Next both groups performed the normal mental rotation task did the same thing as was done in Shepard and Metzler only with different figures 2 Results PET participants who had originally rotated the figure physically showed activity in the primary motor cortex in their original rotation and in the mental rotation the other group did not show activation in the primary motor cortex a These results show that people can use the motor cortex in mental rotation tasks 3 Be able to explain how mental imagery can be stored using the two different perspectives Analog code vs Propositional code Know the debates on them what s the evidence of Analog code what s the evidence of Propositional code and what s the current conclusion do mental images resemble perception a The Imagery debate Pg 236 using an analog code or do they resemble language using a propositional code the physical object b Analog Code Pg 236 a mental representation that closely resembles i Mental imagery is a close relative of perception when you look at a picture of a triangle your brain registers the angles and symmetry of the lines that make that triangle and that s the image that s
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