Cognitive Psychology Chapter 7 Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps

Analog code/Perspective

(depictive representation/pictorial representation), a mental representation that closely resembles the physical object • 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

Propositional code

(descriptive representation), is an abstract, language-like representation; storage is neither visual nor spatial, and it does not physically resemble the original stimulus • mental images consist of a symbolic network of relations • If non-verbal, should be able to reinterpret Pylyshyn • mental images not a necessary component of imagery • differences between perceptual experiences and mental images

• Perceptual Equivalence - imagery uses perceptual processes [• brain imaging (PET/fMRI) studies]

- eliminates concern for demand characteristics » can't choose to activate expected brain area - 70-90% overlap between perception and imagery brain regions • brain damage eliminates both perception and imagery - e.g., a prosopagnosic cannot imagine someone's face

• Perceptual Equivalence - imagery uses perceptual processes [• perceptual priming]

- imagine a letter before threshold detection of that letter - image 'primes' the perceptual response

• Transformational Equivalence - image transformations are like physical transformations [mental rotation]

-- 3D rotation of unknown objects » Shepard and Metzler e.g. tetris img » larger angles of rotation take longer --3D rotation of known objects is different » Biederman & Gerhardstein » recognition by Geons » no need to rotate -- 2D rotation of known objects (letters) » Cooper & Shepard » advance information can eliminate rotation time » rotation of parts or wholes? » same rotation speed regardless of complexity - The role of demand characteristics and experimenter expectancy: Intons-Peterson

Ishai & Sagi: Masking effect

-Ppl can see a visual target more accurately if they create mental images of vertical lines on each side of the target -demand characteristics o Parts wouldn't know that visual targets are esp easy to see if they are surrounded by vertical lines ((ppl that havent taken psych wouldnt know about this)) -ppl have good acuity for mental images that are visualized in the center of the retina, rather than in the periphery; visual perception operates the same way

mental rotation

3D rotation of unknown objects » Shepard and Metzler » larger angles of rotation take longer - 2D rotation of known objects (letters: R) » Cooper and Shepard » advance information can eliminate rotation time

Moar & Bower cogn maps & shapes (angles) study of Cambridge, England

Asked ppl to estimate the angles formed by the intersections of 2 streets, w/o using a map o Parts showed a clear tendency to "regularize" the angles so that they were more like 90angles. Most angles added up to 250 (triangles are suppose to be 180). o Heuristics: • 90-degree-angle heuristic

• Images are distorted by verbal knowledge - mental images are influenced by their labels:

Chambers & Reisberg et al. » Duck (A different than B) » Rabbit (A different than C) • form mental image of ambiguous figure • ask participants to provide reinterpretation of ambiguous figure • draw figure from memory • try to reinterpret physical stimulus • 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. Carmichael et al. (word list -> reproduce figure from list)

Dist. Est: Intervening citiesThorndyke: study map of hypothetical region, reproduce it

Distance Estimates and Number of Intervening Cities: • 0, 1, 2, or 3 other cities along the route between two cities • estimate the dist btwn specified pairs of cities • The number of intervening cities had a clear-cut influence on distance estimates.

border bias

In cogn maps, the finding that people tend to estimate that the distance between two locations-on different sides of a geographic border- are larger than two location that are the same distance apart but on the same side of a geographic border. • Spatial Equivalence (cognitive maps) - spatial relations are preserved in mental images: i.e. Mishra & Mishra: % of parts choosing each vacation home, as a function of which state had experienced an earthquake. When ppl 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 o This demonstrates a "same-category heuristic"

imagery debate

Kosslyn: an important controversy: do mental images resemble perception (using an analog code), or do they resemble language (using a propositional code)

Dual-coding Hypothesis

Paivio: • Images contain both: perceptual and propositional information - e.g., verbal and visual information are stored and processed differently • "yes" / "no" versus tapping Y or N E.g. tap-> *F; id noun in sentence

Takeda: hand rotations

Research on Mental Rotation: o Right-handers recognized right faster than left hands o Left-handers recognized both equally as fast o Both groups recognized upright pics faster and accurately than upside down pics Other research • age • American Sign Language (ASL) Overall strong support for the analog-coding approach

Cooper & Shepard

Same or different with R rotations. Mental Rotation Task MRT. Percieve-match-execute. More degrees you have to rotate, longer it takes with mental imagery 2D

Intons-Peterson [auditory imagery/pitch; Transformational Equivalence]

Study: • "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. Part of Transformational Equivalence: The role of demand characteristics and experimenter expectancy -some research assistants told that imagined 'primes' would help more than viewed primes while others told the opposite -Results were just as the assistants believed

Reed: propositional theory & visual imagery & Ambiguous figures

Verbal representation: • decide whether a pattern is a portion of a design seen earlier (e.g. Star of David, H & X >star or parallelogram?) • Chance performance indicated that people could not have stored mental pictures. • People must store these pictures as descriptions, in propositional codes It is difficult to re-examine and re-interpret an image - although this can be done with well known objects » Superimpose H and X

Stevens & Coupe (comparisons of cogn maps in respects to relative position)

[Cogn maps & relative position] east/west and north/south judgments of cities (e.g. SD/Reno, Rome/Philly)

Tversky (heuristics):cogn maps & relative position

[Cogn. maps & relative position] Images are distorted by verbal knowledge - mental maps reflect heuristics errors in heuristics: -the rotation heuristic • mental maps for San Francisco Bay area • 69% of students showed evidence of the rotation heuristic (e.g. Sd/Reno) cross-cultural evidence The rotation heuristic involves rotating a single coastline, country, building, or other figure. the alignment heuristic • pairs of cities • which city is north (or east) of the other? • Many students showed a consistent tendency to use the alignment heuristic. (E.g. Philly/Rome) Cognitive maps are especially likely to be biased when northern cities in North America are compared to southern cities in Europe. The alignment heuristic involves lining up several separate countries, buildings, or other figures in a straight row

• Transformational Equivalence - image transformations are like physical transformations [transformational equivalence directly observed using neuroscience techniques]

[TE]: » rotation of planned movement » population coding -» receptive fields are "graded" (similarity matters) -» behavior matches the summed neural response » the direction of planned movement rotates from the cue to the target

pitch

a characteristic of a sound stimulus that can be arranged on a scale from low to high

timbre

a characteristic of sound describing the quality of a tone (e.g., flute vs. trumpet)

heuristics

a general rule or problem-solving strategy that usually produces a correct solution; however, it can sometimes lead to cognitive errors -can cause us to miss important details and fail to pay attention to bottom-up information - mental maps reflect this -- Images are distorted by verbal knowledge

Shepard & Chipman [visual imagery and shape]

asked parts to construct mental images of the shapes of various U.S. states, such as Colorado and Oregon

Visual imagery interference: Segal & Fusella

asked parts to create visual img, e.g., a tree; and then researchers presents a real physical stimulus, e.g. a small blue arrow. The researchers then measured the parts ability to detect the physical stimulus o Results: show that ppl had more problems detecting the physical stimulus when the mental img was in the same sensory mode • E.g. when parts had been imagining the shape of a tree, they had trouble detecting the small blue arrow. The mental img "interfered" w/ real visual stimulus. • In contrast, when they had been imagining the sound of an oboe, they had no trouble reporting that they saw the arrow. After all, the imagined sound and the arrow - a visual stimulus - represented 2 different sensory modes

visual imagery & Ambiguous figures: Finke & colleagues

asked ppl to combine two mental imgs (reinterpreting ambiguous stimuli: H, X, M) • In summary, the research on ambiguous figures shows that ppl can create mental images using both propositional and analog codes. That is, we often use analog codes to provide pic-like representations that capture our mental images. However, when the stimuli or situations make it difficult to use analog codes, we may create a verbal representation, using a propositional code • Demonstration 7.4 (Star of David) • combine mental images • identify new interpretations • locate similar, unanticipated shapes in mental images

Distance Estimate & Category membership: Friedman & colleagues

asked students to esti the dist btwn various North America cities • Students from Canada, U.S., and Mexico judged that dists were greater when they were separated by an international border -border bias (esti for dist is greater on different sides, not on same) o Students make a similar error when they estimate distances on their own college campus. They are reluctant to say that 2 buildings could be near each other if they are on different sides of that invisible border

Spatial Equivalence (cognitive maps) - spatial relations are preserved in mental images Kosslyn

cogn maps: Autistic NY Artist • scanning images (takes longer to scan farther) - scanning between features within an object » Kosslyn (1973): show that ppl took a long time to scan the distance between two widely separated points on a mental image of a map that they had create. o In contrast, they quickly scanned the distance between 2 nearby points on a mental image of that map -->does this reflect experimenter expectancy? - Jolicoeur and Kosslyn » Research assistant led to believe it would be 'u-shaped' function » Nevertheless, a linear function was observed » could be due to intervening features • however, estimated distances on maps affected by - intervening cities - similarity between landmarks - landmark effect (distance asymmetry) - border bias

demand characteristics

cues in an experiment that tell the participant what behavior is expected cues that might convey the experimenter's hypothesis to a participant in a research study • Some critics of the analog approach have proposed that the experimental results in imagery experiments might be traceable to one or more of these o (Perhaps they might guess that a visual mental img is supposed to interfere w/ visual perception?)

alignment heuristic

in cogn maps relative to position, a series of separate geographic structures will be remembered as being more lined up than they really are (e.g. Rome/Philly) Tversky (heuristics) --Cogn maps are especially likely to be biased when northern cities in North America are compared to southern cities in Europe. --it involves lining up several separate countries, buildings, or other figures in a straight row

Rotation heuristic

in cogn maps relative to position, ppl tend to remember a figure that is slightly tilted as being either more vertical or more horizontal than it really is Tversky: (Reno is more west of SD; SF Bay) cross-cultural evidence The rotation heuristic involves rotating a single coastline, country, building, or other figure.

landmark effect

in cogn maps, ppl tend to provide shorter dist estimates when traveling to a landmark, an important geographical location, rather than a nonlandmark McNamara and Diwadkar • memorize map containing pictures of objects (landmarks/non land-marks) • estimate distance between various pairs of objects • asymmetry in distance estimates, consistent with the landmark effect o prominent destination seem closer than less important destinations. This research shows the importance of context when we make decisions about distances and other features of our cognitive maps

experimenter expectancy

in research, when researchers' biases and expectations influence the outcomes of an experiment o e.g. when psychologists conduct research about visual imagery, they know that longer dist. Should require longer scanning times

Meta-analysis

is a statistical method for combining numerous studies on a single topic. Researchers begin by locating all appropriate studies on a topic such as gender comparisons in verbal ability

Mental imagery or (imagery)

mental representation of stimuli when those stimuli are not physically present. Sensory receptors do not receive any input when a mental image is created - Perception requires bottom-up information but ___ is pure top-down Behaviorists did not study this because it is 'unobservable'

spatial cognition

the mental processes involved in (1) "thoughts about cognitive maps", (2) memory for the "world that we navigate", and (3) keeping track of objects in a "spatial array" • interdisciplinary (of or relating to more than one branch of knowledge) and applied topics • E.g. comp sci create models of spatial knowledge. Linguist analyzes how ppl talk about spatial arrangements • related Theoretical issues: entertainment (video games), life-and-death topics, communication of spatial info between air traffic controllers and airplane flight crews • individual differences: correlated w/ ppl's scores on tests of visuospatial sketchpad, scores: w/ performance on spatial tasks

Situated Cognition Approach

the proposal that a person makes use of information in the immediate environment or situation; thus, knowledge typically depends on the context surrounding the person

survey knowledge

the relationship among locations that we acquire by directly learning a map or by repeatedly exploring an environment

Visual imagery interference: Mast

told parts to create a visual img of a set of narrow parallel lines o Results: showed that the imagined set of lines and the real set of line produced similar distortions in the participants'' judgments about the orientation of that line segment

Visual Imagery and Rotation: Shepard & Metzler

• Demonstration 7.2 (mental rotation of tetris pieces) • same/different task using pairs of line drawings ->Asked 8 parts to judge 1,600 pairs of line drawings like these. (levers→right: same; left:different) measured dependent variable: reaction time in contrast to accuracy -- follows analog-code perspective • 2D vs. 3D • 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.

cogn maps: Roskos-Ewaldsen & colleagues

• Demonstration 7.5: Learning from a Map (rectangle positions/point) -Cogn maps contains: survey knowledge • orientation of map • Judgments are easier when your mental map and the physical map have matching orientations. • When do ppl make cogn mistakes? o Can be traced to a rotational strategy o The mistakes ppl display as cogn maps "make sense" because they are systematic distortions of reality

Spatial Framework Model

• Spatial Equivalence (cognitive maps) - spatial relations are preserved in mental images Tversky: emphasizes that the above-below spatial dimension is especially important in our thinking, the front-back dimension is moderately important, and the right-left dimension is least important 1. The vertical dimension is correlated with gravity. 2. The vertical dimension on an upright human's body is physically asymmetric. When processing directions on a physical map, people make north-south (above-below) decisions significantly faster than east-west (right-left) decisions. Our cognitive maps reveal certain biases based on our long-term interactions with our bodies and with the physical properties of the external world.

symmetry heuristic

• Spatial Equivalence (cognitive maps) - spatial relations are preserved in mental images: in cogn maps, ppl tend to remember figures as being more symmetrical and regular than they truly really are Cogn maps & Shapes: curves e.g. NY state Thruway run in the east-west direction across the state, although the curves somewhat in certain areas. to me, the upward curve south of Rochester seems symmetrical, equally arched on each side of the city. However, when I check the map, the curve is much steeper on the eastern side

90-degree-angle-heuristic

• Spatial Equivalence (cognitive maps) - spatial relations are preserved in mental images: in cogn maps, when angles in a mental map are represented as being closer to 90°s than they really are

Neuroscience research VI vs. VP: Kosslyn

• 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. • 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.

Paivio [visual imagery and shape]

• asked parts to make judgments about the angle formed by 2 hands on an imaginary clock, also gave several standardized test to assess their visual imagery ability • high-imagery (answered faster) vs. low-imagery participants

auditory imagery &Timbre: Halpern & coauthors

• auditory imagery for the timbre of musical instruments • young adults with musical training • similarity ratings • perception condition vs. imagined condition • 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 representation for the timbre of the imagined musical instruments.

Structural Equivalence -images are constructed just like real objects/drawings

• detailed images take longer to form • images with more complex descriptions take longer to form - Kosslyn e.g. alligator, foldable box

Hirtle and Mascolo: The categories we create can have a large influence on our distance estimates

• learn hypothetical map of a town • estimate distance between pairs of locations • People tended to shift each location closer to other sites that belonged to the same category (e.g., government buildings).

cognitive map

• mental representation of geographic information, including the environment that surrounds us • relationships among objects

Kosslyn, Thompson & coauthors - [Neurosci Research on Mental Rotation Tasks]

• rotate geometric figures with hands vs. watch an electric motor rotate the figures • perform Shepard and Metzler same/different task rotating the figures mentally • 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

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

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

creating cogn maps: Franklin and Tversky's Research (spatial framework model)

• verbal descriptions of ten different scenes ((barn, hotel lobby)) • five objects in each scene • imagine facing one of the objects; specify which object is located in each of several directions • short response times to answer which objects were above and below • People required longer to decide which objects were ahead or behind. • Response times were even longer to decide which objects were to the right or to the left.