The Theory behind Mental Imagery and Visual Imagery - Research Paper Example

COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY: MENTAL IMAGERY Generally people are capable of imagining tastes, experiences and smells without physically being involved. One may be sitting or doing something physical but mentally thinking of something else. It is therefore the reason why we on the process of studying in class at no point we find ourselves thinking of something else. The practice therefore interferes with students’ concentration and some point in class a student may be asked to concentrate by the teacher. Some individuals can form imagination of familiar melodies of interesting songs in their heads (Goldstein, 2014). Over the decades there have been arguments between scientists on whether mental imagery is behind the cognition functions. This research paper will provide a critical analysis of these arguments. This paper looks at mental imagery in its aid in human cognition, looking at the principles behind it. The paper also explores the theory behind the mental imagery and visual imagery which are always believed to be functioning as one. The article therefore looks into various general motivations behind the assumptions that mental images entertainment involves inspection of a picture like object. The paper looks into the processing of information using depictive information and gives how these representations are brought by neural processes. The knowledge behind mental imagery playing a role in human reasoning can be traced back from the study carried by Sir Francis Galton during the 1880s.galton was involved in the survey of huge group of people for their mental imagery use by use of his “breakfast table” visualizing test ( Foltner et al. , 2006). Surprisingly, he discovered that most people disavowed experiencing any visual imagery and scientists applied generally imagery function in their thinking. However, such mentalistic concepts study soon felon difficult times under behaviorism. Mental imagery became the first to emerge into reputation when behaviorist ideology started losing grip on psychology. On the beginning of mental imagery rehabilitation, many experiments were carried out for exploration of functions and forms of mental imagery during reasoning. The experiments prove that image scanning, rotation and examination was easy in the mind’s eye to judge shape, size and various visual features. There were also evidences of mental images examination projected onto scenes that are perceived showing various properties connected to visions. Such images may interfere with the perceptual tasks, adaptation of visual motor and visual illusions of the expected sort incase the imagined forms formed the exact stimulus part. This act convinced many individuals that mental images constituted many visual stimuli properties, and specifically that they had metrical spatial properties like inter-object distances and size. The emerging consensus stated that visual stimuli and mental images were similar, only that the mental imagery was generated by the mind instead of retina stimulation. The common theme that came out is that cognition can imagine a picture the reperceive it, a notion that formed regress especially with the assumption that vision and imagery depends on similar inner display. Our global experiences are represented in the mind as mental images. Comparisons can be formed regarding these mental images and new images can be synthesized. Mental images therefore make us come up with important theories on the functioning of the world by formulation of likely logics of mental images in our heads without having the outcome experience directly (Choo et al 2010). When one is told to imagine, naturally, it requires someone to try to come up with as many aspects as possible, or as one believes of their relevance, of a condition in which one looks at the situation imagined unfold. When imagining, one forms a scanning attention through a mental map, attempting to stimulate mental states sequence in which one get into a sequence of places one believes to be along the routes. Possibly, one may work out time-to-contact durations to viewed landmarks during imaginations. The entire route should not be given in detail anywhere, only the thought that an individual is observing here and then three and so on. The demonstration of this and that represents the objects that are perceived exactly or may be visually in the opening of eyes or by way of proprioception or auditions if the eyes are closed. One may be asked to imagine a smaller thing. He or she may account that it is very difficult to see a smaller thing, and have less details that are visible. One therefore stimulates in accordance to responses one is expected to make, what he or she believes might happen in a situation like that. Concerning the mental scanning experiments, removal of subjects from imagination of scanning their attention through the scene, there is no occurrence of scanning effect of relation to time and distance. This tacit knowledge based stimulation explanation looks like fitting the findings of huge majority of mental imagery given in literature. It also fits the fact about images; the images are ours and we are in a position to making them exhibit almost any property we feel like. We can also generally make them show the features we believe in obtaining in real sense if we were to observe the real situation (Happé et al 2006). Several principles are usually behind the mental imagery in its cognition functions. These principles have enabled for the recovery of the images of the past adventure. The principles are usually five each controlling mental imagery differently. The principle of implicit encoding forms description of ones ability to come up with and imagination of a place but in real sense one has not been there but has formed imaginations from looking at the neighboring features. The principles of spatial, perceptual and structural equivalence accounts for ones experience that he or she can inspect image of the place with some level of resolution (Waller et al 2012). The three also requires some continuance of relative spatial area with capability of discovering relations which one is not previously aware. From implicit encoding principle, one major role of mental imagery is exhibition of properties about entities that are not encoded in the memory despite their capability of being mentally visualized. Mental imagery is therefore instrumental in the retrieval objects information on their physical properties that was never encoded the time before. This feature of image-like representations forms one of the diagrammatic reasoning motivations. The major benefit of implicit encoding principle lies within the efficiency concerning requirement of space. A large amount of spatial information should be computed and exhibited in advance but can be oppressed when needed on demand. In the perceptual equivalence principle, imagery is equivalent to perception functionally. This equivalence is to the extent that same visual systems mechanism is made active through imaginations of objects or events when the same events or objects are perceived in real sense. The principle is important for the development of the second model of functional mental imagery. Mental imagery is imperative in object recognition and visual perception. Therefore distinction of imagery occurrence at the same time whether with or without exterior visual stimuli has no effect on the neural structure operation, interacting in processes of imagery. In the spatial equivalence principle, the assumption of existence of representation of quasi-pictorial medium effective in the processes of mental imagery has already been shown before. The spatial mental image elements arrangement corresponds to the ways of arrangement of objects on real physical surfaces or space. The visual buffer forms the central representation structure of quasi-pictorial and hence mental imagery models essential part. The same data structures have been applied in AI systems working with pictorial knowledge (Coppin et al. 2009). The transformational equivalence consists of empirical findings on mental rotation. The imagined and physical transformations show corresponding dynamic features and governed by same motion laws. The principle is crucial for knowledge operation mentally on dynamic systems like navigational issues or mechanical devices. It has also been applied in artificial systems dealing with dynamic domains reasoning processes. The structural equivalence principle maintains the fact that mental imagery is interwoven tightly with visual perception. This fact entails the probability of dealing with mental images structural properties instead of objects in the real world. The mental image structure corresponds to objects perceived actually in the sense of the structure being coherent, organized well and can be reinterpreted and reorganized. This property is crucial, for instance, for change anticipation, motion processes planning and for partial configuration tasks mentally performed. Nonetheless, this principle represents capacity questions, that is, the difficulty of the number of items that can be tackled properly and simultaneously in mind (DAngiulli et al 2007). However, from the evidences given by the clinical neurological findings, that claims that cortical activation patterns corresponds to the mental image. In my opinion, if the vision and mental imagery shared the cortical display, it is not easy to view the dissociation between imagery capacities and vision. There are various reports on people with normal imagery but have various visual deficits. Furthermore, there are many reports on people with little mental imagery but have normal visions. Information accessing by use of mental image is different from information access by use of visual scene. If you are suppose to write something on the board, you can easily read the letters from any order. But you are unable to do that with the word image. Mental images do not resemble retinal images. If your retina contains an image and you view at some surface from a distance, the apparent image size varies with the surface distance; the larger the retinal image apparent size, the further away it is. This is false for a mental image as it should form on a retinotopic pattern image of cortical activity (Marshall et al. 2007). The current interest in mental imagery has not given clarifications to the puzzles that had been on existence about 300 years ago. Furthermore, the latest picture theories have not solved recent empirical arguments. However, despite of the theoretical mental imagery understanding problematic state, most psychologists still maintain behind mental imagery. The psychologists assume that representations of mental imagery are totally different from those of other forms of thought and specifically those representations are somehow spatial. This refractoriness of mental imagery theorization to counter arguments leads to irresistible grip. This grip stands that our subjective impressions does to our inclination to certain theories acceptance, which in earliest years concentrated on theorizing on physical world as well. Imagery gives people a way of thinking that tops up another element to techniques of verbal usually concerned with thinking. REFERENCES Choo, S. (2010). The role of visual thinking in writing the news story. English Journal, 30-36. Coppin, P., & Hockema, S. (2009). A cognitive exploration of the “non-visual” nature of geometric proofs. Visual Languages and Logic, 81-95. DAngiulli, A., & Reeves, A. (2007). The relationship between self-reported vividness and latency during mental size scaling of everyday items: phenomenological evidence of different types of imagery. The American journal of psychology, 521-551. Foltner, K., & Mansfield, B. (2006). Branding audiology: Its a budding opportunity. The Hearing Journal, 59(5), 41-42. Goldstein, E. B. (2014). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience, 3e, 3rd Edition. [Vital Source Bookshelf version]. Page 271 Happé, F., & Frith, U. (2006). The weak coherence account: detail-focused cognitive style in autism spectrum disorders. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 36(1), 5-25. Marshall, J. (2007). Image as insight: Visual images in practice-based research. Studies in Art Education, 23-41. Waller, D., Schweitzer, J. R., Brunton, J. R., & Knudson, R. M. (2012). A century of imagery research: reflections on Cheves Perkys contribution to our understanding of mental imagery. The American journal of psychology, 125(3), 291-305. Read More