Visual imagery and spatial

cognition
 Visual images

“Mental pictures” : auditory images, olfactory images, cutaneous images.

Visual images have received most attention within cognitive psychology.
The rise of Behaviourism dictated : an image to be rejected,
✔ as they are private
✔ problematic for scientific inquiry. ,
✔ cannot be counted or controlled by other people ,
✔ it can be distorted or biased.
The interest in visual imagery never completely vanished (Paivio,1971), but
became stronger after the behaviourism waned in the 1960.
Research suggestions
1) usage of VI lead to better recalling of information.
▪ e.g., Sports Psychologists, (Martin, Moritz & Hall, 1999).

3) imagery can be used to help people cope with negative emotional events,
▪ remembering a real incident of being rejected, abandoned, or excluded.

visualizing so- called cool aspects of the experience (i.e. where they were standing
or sitting in relation to other people during the incident-) were better able to reduce
their hostile feelings than were participants asked to form images of their visceral
reactions during the incidents (Ayduk, Mischel, & Downey, 2002).
 Codes in LTM
▪ Mnemonic techniques: involve visual • The Dual-coding hypothesis:
imagery: method of loci, interacting • Allan Paivio (1969,1971,1983) :
images and the pegword method. working of mnemonics:
▪ How mnemonic techniques use visual • Two distinct coding system (or
imagery or how imagery-based codes):
mnemonics function differently form non- • 1) verbal 2) imagery
imagey-based mnemonics. • Pictures and concrete words give
rise to both verbal labels and visual
images
▪ Two opposing views: The Dual-coding
hypothesis & The Relational- • i.e. two possible internal codes or
Organizational Hypothesis mental representation
Abstract words : have only one kind of
code or representation: a verbal label
 Paivio (1965) experiment
• First list (CC) (book table) Believed that the first noun in a pair
• Second list (CA) chair-justice (called the “stimulus” noun) serve as
• Third list (AC) freedom-dress conceptual peg on which the second
• Fourth list (AA) beauty- truth (response) noun is hooked.
• Participants averaged 11.41,10.01,7.36.6.05 correct
response respectively.
Stimulus noun is “mental anchor” a
• Explanations: place to which the representation of
Spontaneous formation of visual images of the noun the response noun can be attached.
pairs.
Easiest for concrete nouns. Thus CA condition was significantly
Visual imagery increases as a function of concreteness higher than in the AC condition.
: the more concrete the noun , the richer the image
and the more elaborated the internal code
 The Relational-Organizational Hypothesis:
Bower(1970)
❑ Bower’s experiment was specifically designed to ❑ The more retrieval cues , the
distinguish between the Relational- Organizational greater the chances of recalling.
Hypothesis and the Dual-Coding Hypothesis.
❑ Imagery works by facilitating the
❑ Imagery improved memory not because images creation of a greater number of
are necessarily richer than verbal labels but hooks that link the two to-be-
imagery produces more association between the remembered pieces of information
items to be recalled.

❑ Image requires to create links or hooks between

the information to be remembered and other
information.
 Bower (1970) experiment
• Three groups:
• Overt rote repetition
• Construct two images non interacting
• Interactive imagery
• Those in the rote memorization group recalled 30% of the paired associates

• The noninteractive imagery group, participants recalled 27% of paired associates

• Interacting images group recalled 53% of paired associates.

 Lee Brooks (1968) : Empirical investigations
❑ images are distinct from verbal materials or at least invoke different processes
from those invoked by verbal materials.

❑ Participants were asked to imagine the letter and then to move clockwise
mentally from a particular corner and to indicate whether it was at the
extreme top or bottom of the letter

❑ The correct response are yes yes yes no no no no no no yes.

❑ Responses : verbal & Spatial ( sheet on which letters Y and N ).

❑ Findings: 2.5 times longer when they responded by pointing (spatial) than verbal
 Second task
❑ A sentence: “ A bird in hand is not in the
bush”

❑ Indicate whether each word was a

concrete noun .

❑ Responses: verbal or spatial

❑ Correct responses are no, yes, no, no, yes,

no, no, no, noo, yes.
• Spatial responses was faster than verbal
response
 Explanation
▪ The first tasks requires the information of Visual images, • Moyer (1973) : symbolic
atleast picture like qualities (spatial or visual), distance effect
▪ The responses in it would interfered greater than with a • People respond faster
responses in a verbal response. when the two objects
▪ In other words , the VM is more disruptive of, and (animals) differed
disrupted by, another spatial or visual type of task than greatly
verbal kind of task. • E.g. which is bigger, a
▪ The converse : holding a sentence in memory (a verbal whale or a cockroach?
task) is easier to do with a concurrent Visual/Spatial task Than the question “
than another verbal task. which is bigger, a hog or
a cat?
▪ Brook’s (1968) work supports the idea that images and
words use different kinds of internal codes(as the dual- • The results suggests that
coding hypothesis suggests). images seem to function
like pictures.
 Mental Rotation of Images: Shepard and Metzler
(1971)
• ■ the amount of time participants take to determine
if the drawings depicted the same object or a mirror-
image reversal was directly proportional to the angle
of rotation of the drawings.

• They showed participants perspective line drawings of

three-dimensional objects
• On each trial, participants would see two drawings , in
some cases, the two drawings :
• Depicted the same object but with rotated by some degree.
• Other depicted mirror-image , the mirror images were also
sometimes rotated.
• rotation were either in the picture plane (on the page ) or in
depth (object were going toward or away from the viewer)
 Findings :

▪ The amount of time participants took to decide of the two

drawings depicted the same object or a mirror-image
reversal was directly proportional to the angle of rotation
between the drawings

▪ This suggests that they performed the task by mental

rotation of one drawing.

▪ The rotations in the plane and in depth the time was same,
suggesting rotating three-dimensional images, and not just
two-dimensional drawings.
 Lynn Cooper & Shepard (1973,1975)
Showed participants , mentally rotated more
recognizable stimuli, such as alphabet letters
.

Given a drawing of the letter to be used on a

trial, followed by a cue showing the orientation
to which the test stimulus would be rotated,
before the stimulus appeared.
If these two cues were presented early
enough (1,000 ms) then the P performances
were the same for all angles of rotation.
 Findings

▪ The curves suggests that P were able to

mentally rotate their images either
clockwise or counter clockwise,
depending the angle.
▪ These result of Shepard and Metzler
(1971), differed as this experiment had
alphanumeric character have a known
“upright” position, whereas Shephard
and Melzler’s line drawing do not.
▪ The “peaks” in reaction times at 180
degrees might be that participants were
uncertain about which direction to rotate
the figure.
 Whole object or just parts of an object? Lynn
Cooper (1975) :
Participants were presented with irregular
polygons
The polygons were formed by connecting a
randomly scattered number of points, with more
complex polygons resulting from a greater number
of points.
1. Trained to discriminate between original and mirror-image
reflections of the polygons.
2. Next, they were shown either
the original polygons or the reflections at the different angles of
rotations.
3. To determine whether the object depicted was the original or a
reflection of the original.
 Cooper (1975) findings:

• Reaction times increased linearly with the angle of rotation and

that the rate of rotation was the same for all the polygons,
regardless of their complexity.

• P’s mentally rotated entire polygons, treating the very simple

polygons in exactly the same manner as they did the very
complex ones.
Mental rotations , like physical rotations are
continuous in nature.
demonstration :
for each person , his or her rate of mental rotation was determined.
showed a polygon at particular orientation,
the polygon was removed, and
Asked to mentally rotate in a clockwise direction,
they were presented a test shape in some orientation.
If the test shape was at the orientation corresponding to the orientation
at which the participants visual images would be expected to be, their
reaction times were always fast.
The disparity between the actual orientation and expected orientation ,
the reaction times was greater.
 Tarr and Pinker (1989)Mental rotation : unusual angles

• Provided evidence of mental rotation in recognizing

two-dimensional shapes drawn to resemble
asymmetric character.
• In contrast,
• Bierderman and Gerhardstein (1993), argued that
• when people view three-dimensional objects (or the line
drawings of them), as long as the distinctive geons (the basic
geometric components) of the object remain visible people
can recognize the object without performing mental rotation.
• This debate is very much ongoing.
• However, the both sides of the debate employ
concepts and models used to explain perceptual
phenomena.
 Scanning images : Stephen Kosslyn (1973)
• Evidence also suggest that images are like pictures: they contain visual
information, and the kinds of transformations performed in them corresponds
to transformations on pictures.

• Stephen Kosslyn, investigated the spatial properties of images.

• The participants form a visual image and then scan it, moving from one location
to another in their image, a process known as imaginal scanning,

• The idea is that the time people take to scan reveals the ways images
represent spatial properties such as location and distance (Finke, 1989).
 Kosslyn (1973) experiment https://youtu.be/
ILpSb4wjVW8

• The drawing are elongated either vertically or horizontally and that each has
three easily describable parts: two ends and the middle.
• Participants were told to form an image of one of the drawings and then to
“look for” a particular part.
• Some participants were told to focus first on one part of the image
• ( top or the left) and then to scan , looking for the designated part.
• The result showed that the longer the distance from the designated end to the location of
the part, the longer it took people to say whether the part they were looking was in the
drawing.
• e.g., P told to form an image of the flower and to start scanning at the bottom took longer
to “find” the petals than they did to find the leaves.
• Visual image preserves the spatial characteristics of the drawings
 Lea (1975)

▪ Argued that that the reaction time increased, not because

of increased distance in the image but because of the
number of items in the image that had to be scanned.
▪ e.g., if one started from the bottom, one would scan over
the roots and the leaves on the way to the petals but only
over the roots to get to the leaves.
 Kosslyn, Ball and Reiser (1978) performed another series of studies of image
scanning.

• Participants memorized the locations of seven objects shown

on the map
• The seven objects allow for the constructions of 21 distinct
paths- tree to the hut . The paths vary in length, from 2 cm to
19 cm.
• When they arrived at the object they were asked to push a
button and their RT was recorded.
• The RT was correlated with the distance between the object.
• The P took more time to scan between two distant objects
than they did to scan between the nearby objects.
• They reinforced the idea that images preserve spatial
relations
 Barbara Tversky (1981)
❑ People’s systematic errors in memory for maps.
❑ She argues that people’s map are systematically distorted because
people use different heuristics, or rule of thumb, in orienting and
anchoring oddly shalped units .
❑ People try to “line up” things to make them more orderly.
❑ These distortions suggests that mental images are not like mental
picture.
 Chambers and Reisberg (1992)
❖ P was asked to form an image of a creature shown,
❖ the creature was told to be as a duck/ rabbit.
❖ They presented an actual picture for 5 seconds
❖ P formed an image they were presented with a pair of duck/ rabbit either
A and B or A and C
❖ Findings:
❖ when P thought they were imaging a duck, they detected the difference
between A and B, but could not clearly distinguish between A and C.
❖ The opposite pattern emerged for those who had formed an initial image
of a rabbit. A B C
❖ People paid more attention to the region they look to be the
creature's “ face” and less to the back of the creature’s head.
❖ People form an image of the same physical stimulus, but who give
different meanings to the stimulus, actually form different images.
 Knauff and Johnson-Laird (2002)
▪ The counterexample of; beneficial to be ▪ Cleaner-dirtier, fatter-thinner
able to construct and use mental images” ▪ Control : better-worse, smarter-dumber
▪ They studied people reasoning with three- ▪ Results showed that visual relations
term series problems : Cleaner-dirtier slowed down performance
▪ Tandy is furrier than Bussey. relative to either control problems (better-
▪ Bussey is less fury than Eskie. worse) or visuospatial problem (in back of-
in front of)
▪ Which dog is furriest? ▪ The mental effort in constructing the
▪ The authors varied the kinds of terms used visual images used mental capacity that
in the problems. could focus solely on drawing a logical
▪ Some were easy to envisage both visual and conclusion .
spatial such as above-below or front-back ▪ Thus imagery is not always a boon to
cognitive performance – a lot depends on
the nature of the task at hand.