6. Imagery And Foresight

Front 1

What is the Oxford definition of the mind?

Back 1

The mind – the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel

Front 2

What are phantom limbs and how do this give evidence for the brain being the centre for the mind?

Back 2

Phantom limbs – the brain represents the limb, even if it is not there anymore; feeling of pain/body is part of the brain

Front 3

What are the components of representations?

Back 3

Representations – have a referent (thing) and a sense (different representations)

Front 4

What are the two type of representations? And how do they differ?

Back 4

Analogue representations – representation has a 1 to 1 relationship with referent

Propositional or allegorical representations –representations is not 1 to 1 relationship with referent

Front 5

What is imagery?

Back 5

Imagery – not just reconstructing experiences; can manipulate experience and gain new information out of it

Front 6

What does imagery allow us to do?

Back 6

Imagery frees us from the present; reality (pretend play)

Imagery allows us to practise without moving (can get better just by imagining it and fine tune motor responses; and mental maps (not just learned behaviour; hippocampus plays a role)

Front 7

What is Paivo’s Dual Code Hypothesis and give evidence for it.

Back 7

Paivo’s Dual Code Hypothesis – information is represented in a verbal and an imaginal code

It can be coded and stored in either or both systems

Concrete words (chair, table; stored in both) are remembered better than abstract words (love, justice, economy; only stored in verbal)

Front 8

What is the Conceptual-Propositional Hypothesis?

Back 8

Conceptual-Propositional Hypothesis – we use predicate (or propositional) calculus;

we remember the relationship between the subject and the object, recording the gist (meaning, propositions) of the experience and when prompted we reconstruct based on the these propositions (we would run out of storage space otherwise)

Front 9

What are propositions in a imagery context?

Back 9

Propositions – the gist or meaning of an experience (or sentence etc.); can be represented in logical terms

Front 10

What is a key point in the Conceptual-Propositional Hypothesis that leads us to believe that imagery uses a propositional format?

Back 10

Analogue storage is beyond our capacity

Front 11

What is the evidence for Propositional effects in mental imagery?

Back 11

Propositional effects – if it was just analogue representation we would know that lines paired with ‘barbells’ or ‘spectacles’ are the same, but we perceive them as different

We code and store information in a propositional format

Front 12

What is the evidence for Analogue effects in mental imagery?

Back 12

Transformation – have an idea what objects look like and can manipulate them

Size effects – larger animals take up more of your mind’s eye (difference in RTs

Image Scanning – direct 1 to 1 relationship between actual distance and imagined distance (difference in RTs)

Front 13

What is the Functional Equivalent hypothesis?

Back 13

Functional Equivalence Hypothesis – mental imagery is not abstract propositional, but it is also not a simple analogue representation of the external world;

but relationships between objects in imagery are functionally equivalent to the relationships there objects have in the real world

Front 14

What is the key point/idea for the Functional Equivalent hypothesis?

Back 14

Perception and imagery use same cognitive mechanisms

Front 15

How does imagery and perception differ in processing?

Back 15

Imagery is instigated top-down (our memory banks reconstructed)

Greater activation in visual cortex when imagining than seeing; more demanding than bottom up

Perception is instigated bottom-up (sensory organs upwards to brain)

Front 16

What is mental rotation?

Back 16

Mental rotation – linear relationship between mental rotation and reaction time

Front 17

What are some key finding from mental rotation?

Back 17

Don’t need to format representation then rotate it; con forma representation of a rotating object

Mental images behave as physical objects, because their evolutionary function is to represent the physical world

Front 18

What are the three topics that provide empirical reason for the claim that imagery involves similar processes as perception
[interference]

Back 18

Rotation after-effects

Perception interferes with imagery

Lesions

Front 19

Describe Rotation after-effects as interference with imagery

Back 19

Rotation after-effects – when you stop seeing a rotating image you get an after-effect that rotates the opposite direction and affect RTs

Front 20

Describe how perception interferes with imagery

Back 20

Perception interferes with imagery

when participating engage the same modality in the task and in imagery, it interferes and you perform many errors,

but if imagery and task use different modalities, then you perform few errors

Dream in visual modality since we can afford we don’t use it; but need auditory, olfaction and textile to respond to outside world (alert)

Front 21

Describe how lesions correlate perception and imagery as similar.

Back 21

Lesions – impairment to visual field and imagery field with damage to right parietal lobe (visual neglect); lobectomy – reduced image size (tunnel vision and tunnel imagery)

Front 22

Why is Storage likely in propositional in form?

Back 22

Would run out of space if it was analogue

Front 23

What forms can thinking take?

Back 23

Thinking can be in verbal, imaginal and conceptual-propositional form

Front 24

Does imagery and perception use the same resources and how do they differ in the use?

Back 24

Imagery engages some of the same cognitive resources as perception and shows some functional equivalence;

But imagery is different from perception (involves more activation in visual cortex and some memory areas)

Front 25

What is the concept of Mental time travel?

Back 25

Mental time travel (uniquely human)

We can relive past events (episodic memory) and pre-live future events (episodic foresight) in our imagination (can reflect and draw conclusions)

Front 26

How does extrapolation enable us to do in terms of foresight?

Back 26

Extrapolation – memory enables simulation of potential future events; past behaviour is best predictor of future behaviour

Front 27

What part does vocabulary play in foresight?

Back 27

Vocabulary for recombination – can reassemble basic element into novel scenarios (limitation: creatively rather than faithfully)

Front 28

How does episodic memory and foresight relate and what is the possible consequence of this?

Back 28

Episodic system may be an adaptive design feature of our foresight system – could explain characteristic errors of episodic memory

Front 29

Do animals use foresight? Discuss in terms of Scrub Jay behaviour.

Back 29

Scrub jays – left or right side of tray (and 4hrs ago or 120 hours ago); stored worms and nuts

Preferred worms over nuts; but when worms were cached a long time ago they search for nuts instead, because worms decay and become unpalatable

Strength of memory dictates life of meal worms (?)

But when, where and what (semantic) ≠ mental time travel

Front 30

Do animals Mentally time travel? Give examples of preparedness in animals.

Back 30

Cannot simply ask animals; mental time travel behaviour should be evident in flexible future directed behaviour

Innate predispositions to deal with long term regularities: e.g. nest building for future breeding; hibernation

Individual learning: CS predicts arrival of US

Mind time travel into the future: no obvious evidence yet

Front 31

What are some uses of foresight?

Back 31

Can imagine virtually any potential future scenario

Allows us to act now to secure future advantages

Human survival heavily depends on this foresight