Mental Imagery

What do pictures and mental images have in common? The contemporary tendency to reject mental picture theories of imagery suggests that the answer is: not much. We show that pictures and visual imagery have something important in common. They both contribute to mental simulations: pictures as inputs and mental images as outputs. But we reject the idea that mental images involve mental pictures, and we use simulation theory to strengthen the anti-pictorialist's case. Along the way we try to account for (...) caricature and for some basic features of pictorial representations. (shrink)

The contribution deals with some key problems of cognitive science, whose plurality transcends the boundaries of the disciplines drawn by classical epistemology. In particular, it addresses the issues of mental images, spaces of representation, and the architecture of cognitive processes in vision theory. The thesis presented is that a proper treatment of vision within psychophysics entails an analysis of a series of interconnected spaces, objects and methodologies, from psychophysics to the many virtual realities of representation.

A review of Anežka Kuzmičová´s Mental Imagery in the Experience of Literary Narrative: Views from Embodied Cognition (Stockholm: Stockholm University, 2013, 177 pp. ISBN 978-91-7447-660-6).

The “Perky effect” is the interference of visual imagery with vision. Studies of this effect show that visual imagery has more than symbolic properties, but these properties differ both spatially (including “pictorially”) and temporally from those of vision. We therefore reject both the literal picture-in-the-head view and the entirely symbolic view.

This paper explores the question whether an adequate account of the facts about imagination and mental imagery must construe mental images as objects. Much of the paper is a study of Alastair Hannay's defense of an affirmative answer in his wide?ranging study, Mental Images ? A Defence. The paper first sets out and evaluates Hannay's case. The second part develops an alternative account of mental images, including non?visual images, which Hannay does not treat in detail. The alternative account is analogous (...) to the adverbial theory of perception; and it is suggested how this account, without construing mental images as objects, might accommodate the data from which Hannay argues for their objecthood. (shrink)

This essay investigates the influences that led J.B. Watson to change from being a student in an introspectionist laboratory at Chicago to being the founder of systematic (or radical) behaviourism. Our focus is the crucial period, 1913-1914, when Watson struggled to give a convincing behaviourist account of mental imaging, which he considered to be the greatest obstacle to his behaviourist programme. We discuss in detail the evidence for and against the view that, at least eventually, Watson rejected outright the very (...) existence of mental images. We also discuss in detail whether or not Knight Dunlap was the crucial influence on his eventual rejection of mental images. Finally we consider whether Watson's rejection of mental images was bolstered by some personal incapacity as regards imaging or whether his rejection was more like a form of 'ideological blindness'. (shrink)

Mental imagery is an important topic in classical and modern philosophy, as it is central to the study of knowledge; since subjects can recall features of perceptual experiences in different ways and times, even modifying their structure, in this brief essay we will focus on non-perceptive mental images and to this purpose we will analyse, on the one hand, the nature of perceptive mental images ; on the other hand, NPMI generation according to different strategic conditions and retrieval modalities and, (...) so, their structural relationships with PMI. Thus, we will clarify what NPMI amounts to and, to this purpose, we will address the issue of epistemic correlation and semantic reference. As regards the former, we will adopt the notion of ‘belief’, both to describe which attitude supports the use of an NPMI and to account for its relationship with a PMI. As regards the latter, we will talk about weak ontology between an NPMI and the world, to conceive ‘the way in which’ mental imagery, despite the absence of a sensorial modification, refers to physical objects. As the subject’s mental contents determine, but do not constrain, what NPMI is like, we will deal with the ‘involvement’ of prior knowledge and the notion of meaningful space to underline that its generation is always the result of a wide process which involves perceptive visual information already processed and stored together with further mental contents. So, though some Authors consider mental imagery to be a ‘percept-like’ image and, somehow, espouse the theory of reactivation, we will pose a challenge to this theory – i.e. to what we call mental imagery standard framework – describing an NPMI in terms of configurational setting and indeterminacy. Consequently, we will propose a non-linear dynamic framework of mental imagery generation , according to which an NPMI is not reducible to a mere recalling of figural features of a perceptive image. (shrink)

Two fundamental views about the nature of visual mental images have played significant roles in both the history of philosophy and the history of psychology. The traditional, or imagist view, is that mental images are like inner pictures. Experiencing these inner pictures is understood to be something occurring in the absence of a physical stimulus, but is also acknowledged as something significantly like seeing actual objects. This often leads to attributing to mental images the actual properties of physical objects and (...) to postulating an inner homunculus that can observe these properties. Recognition of these difficulties led to the descriptivist view, which holds that mental images are actually inner verbal descriptions. Descriptivists argue that mental images, like physical images or pictures, carry no meanings in and of themselves. They are therefore incapable of performing any of the functions in the mind traditionally assigned to them by imagists, such as bearing memory information or serving as abstract general ideas . ;I argue for a compromise position between the two views. After reviewing the history of mental imagery, I argue that having mental images is a complex family of states, each of which involves varying degrees of visual and intentional content. At one end of the scale , mental images may have virtually no conceptual content; at the other end of the scale , images may serve as symbolic quasi-instantiative particulars in and through which we think. Although they obviously do not have the properties of physical objects, I maintain that phenomenological and linguistic analyses identify mental images as objects, and that there are no metaphysical bars to admitting mental objects as real entities. By means of contrast, I also investigate how two contemporary theories in cognitive science understand mental imagery. I suggest that the hypothesized computational states and procedures meant to reveal the nature of mental imagery lead to untenable views about the mind, and tell us very little about mental images. (shrink)

There has been considerable debate among philosophers and psychol- ogists about whether the internal representations of imagery represent in the manner of pictures or in the manner of language. One side, pictorialism,holds that an internal imagery representation of Reagan is like a picture of Reagan. The other side, descriptionalism,holds that an internal imagery representation of Reagan is more like a string of words denoting or describing Reagan. My aim here is to expose a widespread fallacy on the part of the (...) descriptionalists. In the course of so doing, I try to clarify the pictorialist position, and show how it can undercut what appears to be a category of evidence for the other side. (shrink)

Such claims are part 0f a viewpoint according t0 which mental images represent in thc manner of pictures. It is very natural t0 think that such claims are confused or nonsensical. One of my purposes here is a limited dcfcnsc of this supposedly confused doctrine, especially against its chief cognitive science rival. But this..

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and ... V. Influence of imaged pictures and sounds on detection of visual and auditory signals. ...

It's often hypothesized that the structure of mental representation is map-like rather than language-like. The possibility arises as a counterexample to the argument from the best explanation of productivity and systematicity to the language of thought hypothesis—the hypothesis that mental structure is compositional and recursive. In this paper, I argue that the analogy with maps does not undermine the argument, because maps and language have the same kind of compositional and recursive structure.

The paper focuses on mental imagery and concepts. First we discuss the possible reasons why the propositional view of representation was so successful among cognitive scientists interested in concepts. Then a novel perspective, the embodied view, is presented. Differently from the classic cognitivist view, this perspective acknowledges the importance of perceptual and motor imagery for concepts. According to the embodied perspective concepts are not given by propositional, abstract and amodal symbols but are grounded in sensorimotor processes. Neural and behavioral evidence (...) favouring this perspective is presented. The paper discusses the continuity, but also the differences, between the imagery view and the embodied view of conceptual representation. (shrink)

One central brand of representationalism claims that the specific phenomenal character of an experience is fully determined by its content. A challenge for this view is that cognitive and perceptual experiences sometimes seem to have the same representational content while differing in phenomenal character. In particular, it might seem that one can have faint imagery experiences or conscious thoughts with the same contents as vivid perceptual experiences. This paper argues that such cases never arise, and that they are probably metaphysically (...) impossible. I also suggest a fully representational account of differences in vividness between phenomenal experiences. (shrink)

The motivation for this project springs from two distinct interests in the philosophy of mind. The first concerns the nature of mental images. In particular, I want to examine the historically well entrenched intuition that a resemblance exists between imagery and perception. Perhaps the best known expression of this thesis is David Hume's claim that images are "faded copies" of prior perceptions. Similar uses of the copy metaphor are found, more recently, in the works of William James, Bertrand Russell, and (...) G. E. Moore. The other interest has to do with the mental representation of individuals. My specific concern is to answer Wittgenstein's question: "What makes my image of him into an image of him?" This question is viewed as raising a problem about reference, not unlike the one facing theorists of language-reference, or the one facing those interested in de re thinking about individuals. ;The project has been designed in a way that allows for the pursuit of both interests. Its central purpose is to identify features of imagery which underlie and vindicate the traditional practice of referring to a memory image of some individual, x, as a copy of some prior perceptual experience of x. In recent years, philosophers have been severely critical of this tradition. The unfortunate tendency to view images as perceived entities has drawn the heaviest fire. Accordingly, as a preliminary matter, efforts are taken to acknowledge such conceptual incoherencies and to disentangle them from what is illuminating about the copy metaphor. Having made some disclaimers, then, three elements of the copy metaphor are isolated and discussed in connection with imagery. It is argued that a copy, ideally, encodes the same information as its original , that it encodes the information in the same manner , and that there is a certain causal connection linking copy with original . ;Next, an approach to imagery, which borrows from recent developments in cognitive psychology, is recommended. It is held that imagery involves the use of information acquired initially in prior perception. The sequence of states/events underlying the acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of specific items of information is characterized as an information-processing chain. It is then claimed that the concept of such a chain linking a memory image of x with some prior perception of x preserves two elements of the copy metaphor . As for the remaining element, a wide range of experimental and conceptual data is adduced in support of the thesis that imagery and perception share information formats. ;This approach is crystallized in the following theory of memory image reference: A memory image of some individual, x, is an internal representation which encodes, in a percept-like format, information acquired in prior perception of x. The theory is called a "copy theory" in recognition of its preservation of the three cited elements of the copy metaphor. A series of thought-experiments are then offered in its defense. ;Returning to the original motivations, the development of the shared-format thesis is intended to explain the general intuition of resemblance between imagery and perception. It may be viewed as an analysis of the quasi-sensory character of imagery. Finally, Wittgenstein's question about image-reference is answered by appeal to the reference-fixing information-processing chain. The referent of a memory image is identified with the source of the information encoded in the image. (shrink)

In 1880, Galton carried out an investigation of imagery in a sample of distinguished men and a sample of nonscientists (adolescent male students). He concluded that scientists were either totally lacking in visual imagery or had “feeble” powers of mental imagery. This finding has been widely accepted in the secondary literature in psychology. A replication of Galton’s study with modern scientists and modern university undergraduates found no scientists totally lacking in visual imagery and very few with feeble visual imagery. Examination (...) of Galton’s published data shows that his own published data do not support his claims about deficient visual imagery in scientists. The modern data for scientists and nonscientists and the 1880 data for scientists and nonscientists are in agreement in showing that all groups report substantial imagery on recollective memory tasks such as Galton’s breakfast questionnaire. We conclude that Galton’s conclusions were an example of theory-laden interpretation of data based on the initial responses from several very salient scientists who reported little or no visual imagery on Galton’s imagery questionnaire. (shrink)