Cognition, 8e
Chapter 7
Mental Imagery
and Cognitive Maps
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
• not directly observable
• fades quickly
imagery debate
• perception vs. language
• analog code (depictive
representation/pictorial representation)
• propositional code (descriptive
representation)
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
How to study mental imagery?
If a mental image resembles a physical object,
then people should make judgments about a
mental image in the same way that they make
judgments about the corresponding physical
object.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
In Depth: Visual Imagery and Rotation
Shepard and Metzler's Research
• Demonstration 7.2
• same/different task using pairs of line
drawings
• two- vs. three-dimensions
• 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.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
In Depth: Visual Imagery and Rotation
Subsequent Research on Mental
Rotation
Research with other stimuli (e.g., letters of the
alphabet) also finds clear relationship between
amount of rotation and reaction time.
Takeda and coauthors (2010)
• handedness
• upright vs. upside-down pictures
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
In Depth: Visual Imagery and Rotation
Subsequent Research on Mental
Rotation
Other research
• age
• American Sign Language (ASL)
Overall strong support for the analog-coding
approach
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
In Depth: Visual Imagery and Rotation
Cognitive Neuroscience Research on
Mental Rotation Tasks
Kosslyn, Thompson and coauthors (2001)
• rotate geometric figures with hands vs.
watch an electric motor rotate the figures
• perform Shepard and Metzler
same/different task rotating the figures
mentally
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
In Depth: Visual Imagery and Rotation
Cognitive Neuroscience Research on
Mental Rotation Tasks
Kosslyn, Thompson and coauthors (2001)
(continued)
• 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.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
In Depth: Visual Imagery and Rotation
Cognitive Neuroscience Research on
Mental Rotation Tasks
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
Implications for people recovering from a
stroke
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
Visual Imagery and Distance
Stephen Kosslyn
time to scan the distance between two points
in a mental image
experimenter expectancy
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
Visual Imagery and Shape
Paivio (1978)
• hands on imaginary clock
• high-imagery vs. low-imagery participants
Shepard and Chipman (1970)
• more complex shapes
• U.S. states
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
Conclusions About The Characteristics
of Mental Images (so far)
1. When people rotate a visual image, a large
rotation takes them longer, just as they take
longer when making a large rotation with a
physical stimulus.
2. People make distance judgments in a similar
fashion for mental images and physical stimuli.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
Conclusions About The Characteristics
of Mental Images (so far)
3. People make decisions about shape in a similar
fashion for mental images and physical stimuli;
this conclusion holds true for both simple shapes
(angles formed by hands on a clock) and
complex shapes (geographic regions, like
Colorado or West Virginia).
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
Visual Imagery and Interference
Mental imagery can interfere with visual
perception.
Segal and Fusella (1970)
• create visual image
• detect physical stimulus
• People had more problems detecting the
physical stimulus when the image and the
physical stimulus were in the same sensory
mode.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
Visual Imagery and Interference
Mast and colleagues (1999)
Imagined lines and real lines produced similar
distortions in participants' judgments about the
orientation of the line segment.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
Visual Imagery and Ambiguous Figures
Demonstration 7.3
When creating a mental image of an ambiguous
figure, people sometimes use analog codes and
sometimes use propositional codes.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
Visual Imagery and Ambiguous Figures
Reed (1974)
• decide whether a pattern is a portion of a
design seen earlier
• Chance performance indicated that people
could not have stored mental pictures.
• People must store these pictures as
descriptions, in propositional codes.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
Visual Imagery and Ambiguous Figures
Chambers and Reisberg (1985)
• form mental image of ambiguous figure (e.g.,
the rabbit-duck figure)
• ask participants to provide reinterpretation of
ambiguous figure
• draw figure from memory
• try to reinterpret physical stimulus
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
Visual Imagery and Ambiguous Figures
Chambers and Reisberg (1985) (continued)
• 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.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
Explanations for Visual Imagery
Neuroscience Research Comparing
Visual Imagery and Visual Perception
Kosslyn (2004)
• 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.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
Explanations for Visual Imagery
Neuroscience Research Comparing
Visual Imagery and Visual Perception
Kosslyn (2004) (continued)
• 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.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
Individual Differences: Gender
Comparisons in Spatial Ability
meta-analysis (continued)
• meta-analyses of gender differences in verbal
ability find effect sizes "close to zero" or
"small"; gender similarities
• meta-analyses of gender differences in
mathematical ability find effect sizes "close
to zero"; gender similarities
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
Individual Differences: Gender
Comparisons in Spatial Ability
meta-analysis (continued)
• meta-analyses of gender differences in spatial
ability find effect sizes ranging from "small" to
"large"
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Visual Imagery
Individual Differences: Gender
Comparisons in Spatial Ability
What do these differences mean?
•
•
•
•
some studies report no gender differences
effects of task instructions
effects of training
experiences with toys and sports that
emphasize spatial skills
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Auditory Imagery
auditory imagery
• the mental representation of sounds when
the sounds are not physically present
• examples: laughter, song, car sounds,
animals
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Auditory Imagery
Auditory Imagery and Pitch
pitch—a characteristic of a sound stimulus
that can be arranged on a scale from low to
high
Intons-Peterson and coauthors (1992)
• "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.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Auditory Imagery
Auditory Imagery and Timbre
timbre—a characteristic of sound
describing the quality of a tone (e.g., flute
vs. trumpet)
Halpern and coauthors (2004)
• auditory imagery for the timbre of musical
instruments
• young adults with musical training
• similarity ratings
• perception condition vs. imagined condition
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
The Characteristics of
Auditory Imagery
Auditory Imagery and Timbre
Halpern and coauthors (2004) (continued)
• 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 representations for
the timbre of the imagined musical
instruments.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognitive Maps
cognitive map
• mental representation of geographic
information, including the environment that
surrounds us
• relationships among objects
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognitive Maps
Cognitive Maps and Distance
Distance Estimates and Number of
Intervening Cities
Thorndyke (1981)
• study map of hypothetical region until you
can reproduce it
• 0, 1, 2, or 3 other cities along the route
between two cities
• estimate the distance between specified
pairs of cities
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognitive Maps
Cognitive Maps and Distance
Distance Estimates and Number of
Intervening Cities
Thorndyke (1981) (continued)
• The number of intervening cities had a
clear-cut influence on distance estimates.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognitive Maps
Cognitive Maps and Distance
Distance Estimates and Category
Membership
The categories we create can have a large
influence on our distance estimates.
Hirtle and Mascolo (1986)
• learn hypothetical map of a town
• estimate distance between pairs of
locations
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognitive Maps
Cognitive Maps and Distance
Distance Estimates and Category
Membership
Hirtle and Mascolo (1986) (continued)
• People tended to shift each location closer
to other sites that belonged to the same
category (e.g., government buildings).
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognitive Maps
Cognitive Maps and Distance
Distance Estimates and Category
Membership
Friedman and colleagues
• North American cities
• students from Canada, United States,
Mexico
• international borders
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognitive Maps
Cognitive Maps and Distance
Distance Estimates and Category
Membership
Mishra & Mishra (2010)—border bias
• vacation home in Oregon or Washington
• earthquake
• When people 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 as the
earthquake.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognitive Maps
Cognitive Maps and Shape
We tend to construct cognitive maps in
which the shapes are more regular than
they are in reality.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognitive Maps
Cognitive Maps and Shape
Angles
Moar and Bower (1983)
• cognitive maps of Cambridge, England
• estimates for the angles formed by the
intersection of two streets
• tendency to "regularize" the angles so that
they were more like 90-degree angles
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognitive Maps
Cognitive Maps and Shape
Curves
symmetry heuristic—We remember figures as
being more symmetrical and regular than they
truly are.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognitive Maps
Cognitive Maps and Relative Position
Heuristics (continued)
1. We remember a slightly tilted geographic
structure as being either more vertical or
more horizontal than it really is (the rotation
heuristic).
2. We remember a series of geographic
structures as being arranged in a straighter
line than they really are (the alignment
heuristic).
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognitive Maps
Cognitive Maps and Relative Position
The Rotation Heuristic
A figure that is slightly tilted will be
remembered as being either more vertical or
more horizontal than it really is.
Example: San Diego or Reno?; California
coastline mentally rotated to seem more
vertical than it is in reality
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognitive Maps
Cognitive Maps and Relative Position
The Rotation Heuristic
Tversky (1981)
• mental maps for San Francisco Bay area
• 69% of students showed evidence of the
rotation heuristic
cross-cultural evidence
The rotation heuristic involves rotating a single
coastline, country, building, or other figure.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognitive Maps
Cognitive Maps and Relative Position
The Alignment Heuristic
A series of separate geographic structures will
be remembered as being more lined up than
they really are.
Example: Rome or Philadelphia?; The United
States and Europe get mentally mis-aligned to
be at the same latitude.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7
Cognitive Maps
Cognitive Maps and Relative Position
The Alignment Heuristic
Tversky (1981)
• pairs of cities
• Which city is north (or east) of the other?
• Many students showed a consistent
tendency to use the alignment heuristic.
Cognitive maps are especially likely to be
biased when northern cities in North America
are compared to southern cities in Europe.
Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin
Chapter 7