The Case For Mental Imagery

Author : Stephen M. Kosslyn,William L. Thompson,Giorgio Ganis
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 260 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2006-03-09
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9780190292515

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The Case for Mental Imagery by Stephen M. Kosslyn,William L. Thompson,Giorgio Ganis Pdf

When we try to remember whether we left a window open or closed, do we actually see the window in our mind? If we do, does this mental image play a role in how we think? For almost a century, scientists have debated whether mental images play a functional role in cognition. In The Case for Mental Imagery, Stephen Kosslyn, William Thompson, and Giorgio Ganis present a complete and unified argument that mental images do depict information, and that these depictions do play a functional role in human cognition. They outline a specific theory of how depictive representations are used in information processing, and show how these representations arise from neural processes. To support this theory, they seamlessly weave together conceptual analyses and the many varied empirical findings from cognitive psychology and neuroscience. In doing so, they present the conceptual grounds for positing this type of internal representation and summarize and refute arguments to the contrary. Their argument also serves as a historical review of the imagery debate from its earliest inception to its most recent phases, and provides ample evidence that significant progress has been made in our understanding of mental imagery. In illustrating how scientists think about one of the most difficult problems in psychology and neuroscience, this book goes beyond the debate to explore the nature of cognition and to draw out implications for the study of consciousness. Student and professional researchers in vision science, cognitive psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience will find The Case for Mental Imagery to be an invaluable resource for understanding not only the imagery debate, but also and more broadly, the nature of thought, and how theory and research shape the evolution of scientific debates.

Author : Stephen M. Kosslyn,William L. Thompson,Giorgio Ganis
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 260 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2006-03-09
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 0199727570

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The Case for Mental Imagery by Stephen M. Kosslyn,William L. Thompson,Giorgio Ganis Pdf

When we try to remember whether we left a window open or closed, do we actually see the window in our mind? If we do, does this mental image play a role in how we think? For almost a century, scientists have debated whether mental images play a functional role in cognition. In The Case for Mental Imagery, Stephen Kosslyn, William Thompson, and Giorgio Ganis present a complete and unified argument that mental images do depict information, and that these depictions do play a functional role in human cognition. They outline a specific theory of how depictive representations are used in information processing, and show how these representations arise from neural processes. To support this theory, they seamlessly weave together conceptual analyses and the many varied empirical findings from cognitive psychology and neuroscience. In doing so, they present the conceptual grounds for positing this type of internal representation and summarize and refute arguments to the contrary. Their argument also serves as a historical review of the imagery debate from its earliest inception to its most recent phases, and provides ample evidence that significant progress has been made in our understanding of mental imagery. In illustrating how scientists think about one of the most difficult problems in psychology and neuroscience, this book goes beyond the debate to explore the nature of cognition and to draw out implications for the study of consciousness. Student and professional researchers in vision science, cognitive psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience will find The Case for Mental Imagery to be an invaluable resource for understanding not only the imagery debate, but also and more broadly, the nature of thought, and how theory and research shape the evolution of scientific debates.

Author : Stephen Michael Kosslyn
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 524 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 1980
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : 0674443667

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Image and Mind by Stephen Michael Kosslyn Pdf

Kosslyn makes an impressive case for the view that images are critically involved in the life of the mind. In a series of ingenious experiments, he provides hard evidence that people can construct elaborate mental images, search them for specific information, and perform such other internal operations as mental rotation.

Author : Valerie Thomas
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 206 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2019-09-19
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781351744966

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Using Mental Imagery to Enhance Creative and Work-related Processes by Valerie Thomas Pdf

In Using Mental Imagery to Enhance Creative and Work-Related Processes, Valerie Thomas explores the productive use of mental imagery skills to engage with the processes of creativity. Practical and original, the book offers detailed guidance for a highly effective method that can provide rich insights into the development of a range of creative enterprises, including artistic and work-related projects. In this accessible and innovative book, Thomas pays equal attention to the theory and application of mental imagery. First, she explains how imagination-based methods have been developed and theorised within the discipline of creative behaviour, especially with regard to dual-processing theories of creativity. The book then considers mental imagery as a dialogical method informed by contemporary post-Cartesian theories of embodied cognition that reprise an earlier premodern understanding of imagination as a mediator between body and mind. Thomas introduces a particular approach to mental imagery that, informed by a functional research-informed framework (the Interactive Communicative model of mental imagery), can be applied very effectively to creative processes. The second half of the book provides detailed guidance on how to apply this particular method and is copiously illustrated with case vignettes. It includes chapters on using imagery theorised as conceptual metaphors such as the plant image for representing creative capabilities and the building image for representing creative and work-related projects. It also explains how to use imagery to represent and work with the conceptual processes of undertaking qualitative research projects. This original and wide-ranging book advances the scope and use of creative image-work in diverse settings. It will be an essential resource for everyone who is interested in developing their own mental imagery skills for creative real-world applications and for all professionals such as coaches, therapists and research educators who want to facilitate creativity in others.

Author : Tomaso Vecchi,Gabriella Bottini
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 452 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2006-01-01
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9789027252029

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Imagery and Spatial Cognition by Tomaso Vecchi,Gabriella Bottini Pdf

The relationships between perception and imagery, imagery and spatial processes, memory and action: These are the main themes of this text The interest of experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience on imagery and spatial cognition is remarkably increased in the last decades. Different areas of research contribute to the clarification of the multiple cognitive processes subserving spatial perception and exploration, and to the definition of the neurophysiological mechanisms underpinning these cognitive functions. The aim of this book is to provide the reader (post-graduate students as well as experts) with a complete overview of this field of research. It illustrates the way how brain, behaviour and cognition interact in normal and pathological subjects in perceiving, representing and exploring space. (Series B).

Author : Stephen M. Kosslyn
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 532 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 1996-08-26
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 0262611244

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Image And Brain by Stephen M. Kosslyn Pdf

This long-awaited work by prominent Harvard psychologist Stephen Kosslyn integrates a twenty-year research program on the nature of high-level vision and mental imagery. Image and Brain marshals insights and empirical results from computer vision, neuroscience, and cognitive science to develop a general theory of visual mental imagery, its relation to visual perception, and its implementation in the human brain. It offers a definitive resolution to the long-standing debate about the nature of the internal representation of visual mental imagery. Kosslyn reviews evidence that perception and representation are inextricably linked, and goes on to show how "quasi-pictorial" events in the brain are generated, interpreted, and used in cognition. The theory is tested with brain-scanning techniques that provide stronger evidence than has been possible in the past. Known for his work in high-level vision, one of the most empirically successful areas of experimental psychology, Kosslyn uses a highly interdisciplinary approach. He reviews and integrates an extensive amount of literature in a coherent presentation, and reports a wide range of new findings using a host of techniques. A Bradford Book

Author : Alan Richardson
Publisher : Springer
Page : 191 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2013-12-01
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9783662378175

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Mental Imagery by Alan Richardson Pdf

Author : Michael Tye
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 194 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2000-03-13
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 0262700735

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The Imagery Debate by Michael Tye Pdf

Michael Tye untangles the complex web of empirical and conceptual issues of the newly revived imagery debate in psychology between those that liken mental images to pictures and those that liken them to linguistic descriptions. He also takes into account longstanding philosophical issues, to arrive at a comprehensive, up-to-date view and an original theory that provides answers to questions raised in both psychology and philosophy. Drawing on the insights of Stephen Kosslyn and the work on vision of David Mart, Tye develops a new theory of mental imagery that includes an account of imagistic representation and also tackles questions about the phenomenal qualities of mental images, image indeterminacy, the neurophysiolgical basis of imagery, and the causal relevance of image content to behavior. Tye introduces the history of philosophical views on the nature of mental imagery from Aristotle to Kant. He examines the reasons for the decline of picture theories of imagery and the use of alternative theories, the reemergence of the picture theory (with special reference to the work of Stephen Kosslyn), and the contrasting view that mental images are inner linguistic descriptions rather than pictorial representations. He then proposes his own theory of images interpreted as symbol-filled arrays in part like pictures and in part like linguistic descriptions, addresses the issue of vagueness in some features of mental images, and argues that images need not have qualia to account for their phenomenological character. Tye concludes by discussing the questions of how images are physically realized in the brain and how the contents of images can be causally related to behavior.

Author : Joel Pearson,Stephen M. Kosslyn
Publisher : Frontiers E-books
Page : 195 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2024-06-17
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9782889191499

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Mental Imagery by Joel Pearson,Stephen M. Kosslyn Pdf

Our ability to be conscious of the world around us is often discussed as one of the most amazing yet enigmatic processes under scientific investigation today. However, our ability to imagine the world around us in the absence of stimulation from that world is perhaps even more amazing. This capacity to experience objects or scenarios through imagination, that do not necessarily exist in the world, is perhaps one of the fundamental abilities that allows us successfully to think about, plan, run a dress rehearsal of future events, re-analyze past events and even simulate or fantasize abstract events that may never happen. Empirical research into mental imagery has seen a recent surge, due partly to the development of new neuroscientifc methods and their clever application, but also due to the increasing discovery and application of more objective methods to investigate this inherently internal and private process. As the topic is cross hosted in Frontiers in Perception Science and Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, we invite researchers from different fields to submit opinionated but balanced reviews, new empirical, theoretical, philosophical or technical papers covering any aspect of mental imagery. In particular, we encourage submissions focusing on different sensory modalities, such as olfaction, audition somatosensory etc. Similarly, we support submissions focusing on the relationship between mental imagery and other neural and cognitive functions or disorders such as visual working memory, visual search or disorders of anxiety. Together, we hope that collecting a group of papers on this research topic will help to unify theory while providing an overview of the state of the field, where it is heading, and how mental imagery relates to other cognitive and sensory functions.

Author : R.H. Logie,M. Denis
Publisher : Elsevier
Page : 432 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 1991-06-25
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 0080867340

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Mental Images in Human Cognition by R.H. Logie,M. Denis Pdf

This book represents the research efforts of individuals whose scientific expertise lies in reflection on what Sartre described as reflective acts. Theory in the cognitive psychology of mental imagery, endeavors not only being able to describe the contents and nature of mental imagery, but also being able to understand the underlying functional cognition. Psychologists need not solely rely on the techniques of introspection, and the last two decades have seen highly creative developments in techniques for eliciting behavioural data to be complemented by introspective reports. This level of sophistication has provided singular insights into the relationship between imagery and other consequential and universal aspects of human cognition: perception, memory, verbal processes and problem solving. The recognition that imagery, despite its ubiquitous nature, differs between individuals both in prevalence and in kind, and the dramatic rise in cognitive science has provided the additional potential for integrating our understanding of cognitive function with our understanding of neuroanatomy and of computer science. All of these relationships, developments and issues are dealt with in detail in this book, by some of the most distinguished authors in imagery research, working at present in both Europe and the USA.

Author : Warren Hilton
Publisher : Namaskar Books
Page : 24 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2024-06-17
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

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Power of Mental Imagery by Warren Hilton Pdf

Author : Zenon W. Pylyshyn
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 590 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : Categorization (Psychology)
ISBN : 0262162172

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Seeing and Visualizing by Zenon W. Pylyshyn Pdf

How we see and how we visualize: why the scientific account differs from our experience.

Author : M. Denis,Johannes Engelkamp,John T.E. Richardson
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 415 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2012-12-06
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9789400913912

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Cognitive and Neuropsychological Approaches to Mental Imagery by M. Denis,Johannes Engelkamp,John T.E. Richardson Pdf

The locus of concreteness effects in memory for verbal materials has been described here in terms of the processing of shared and distinctive information. This theoretical view is consistent with a variety of findings previously taken as support for dual coding, insofar as both verbal and perceptual information may be involved in comprehending high-imagery sentences and in learning lists of concrete words. But going beyond previous accounts of imagery, this view also can provide explanations for several findings that appear contradictory to the thesis that concrete and abstract materials differ in the form of their storage in long-term memory. Although this does not rule out a role for imagery in list learning or text comprehension, it is clear that the complex processes involved in comprehension and memory for language go beyond mechanisms supplied by a theory based on the availability of modality-specific mental representations. The task now is to determine the viability of the theory in other domains. Several domains of imagery research presented at EWIC provided fertile ground for evaluating my theoretical viewpoint. Although not all provide a basis for distinguishing representational theories of imagery from the imagery as process view, there are data in several areas that are more consistent with the latter than the former. In other cases, there are at least potential sources of evidence that would allow such a distinction.

Author : Ronald A. Finke
Publisher : Bradford Book
Page : 190 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 1989-10
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 0262525658

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Principles of Mental Imagery by Ronald A. Finke Pdf

Imagery can be used to improve memory, perceptual skills, even creativity. Numerous experiments carried out over the past 20 years have probed the nature of mental imagery and unlocked its powers. Principles of Mental Imagery offers a broad, balanced, and up to date introduction to the major findings of this research and identifies 5 general principles that can account for most of them. It considers the development of experimental techniques that have solved many of the challenging methodological problems inherent in imagery research and includes recent experimental findings not covered in other imagery books.Principles of Mental Imagery brings together work by all of the key imagery researchers, among them Roger Shepard, Stephen Kosslyn, Allen Paivio, Lynn Cooper, Steven Pinker and the author. Chapters present new research on the role that imagery plays in human memory, new findings on how mental imagery influences perception (one of the dominant issues in modern imagery research), recent studies on "representational momentum" experimental demonstrations of how imagery can be used to make creative, visual discoveries, and recent work on imagery deficits in brain damaged patients. And, a new argument is made for why the study of mental imagery should be motivated by general principles, rather than formal models. Each chapter concludes with convenient summaries and suggestions for further exploration.Ronald A. Fluke is Associate Professor of Psychology at Texas A & M University. A Bradford Book

Author : Jim Taylor, PhD
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 297 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2017-10-06
Category : Sports & Recreation
ISBN : 9781442277090

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Train Your Mind for Athletic Success by Jim Taylor, PhD Pdf

Much too often, the mental aspect of sport performance is overlooked. While all top athletes are in outstanding physical condition and technically exceptional, mental preparation is often what separates the best from the rest. This is just as true for young athletes as it is for pros and Olympians. And even though relatively few athletes will ever reach the top of their sport, the attitudes and life lessons learned from mental training—such as motivation, confidence, focus, perseverance, and resilience—will serve them well in all aspects of their lives. In Train Your Mind for Athletic Success: Mental Preparation to Achieve Your Sports Goals, Dr. Jim Taylor uses his own elite athletic experience and decades of working with some of the world’s best athletes to provide competitors of every ability with insights, practical exercises, and tools they can use to be mentally prepared when it really counts. His Prime Sport System explores the attitudes that lay the foundation for athletic success, the mental obstacles that can hold athletes back, the preparations they must take, the mental muscles they should strengthen, and the mental tools they need to fine tune their competitive performances. Most importantly, Dr. Taylor shows athletes practical strategies they can use to become mentally strong so they can perform their best when it matters most. Train Your Mind for Athletic Success goes well beyond the typical mental skills that are discussed in other mental training books. Readers will not only learn why mental preparation is so important to athletic success, but also where they personally are in each area thanks to brief mental assessments in each section of the book. In addition, each chapter includes exercises to show athletes how to incorporate mental training directly into their overall sport training regimen. The most comprehensive and in-depth book on mental preparation for athletes available, Train Your Mind for Athletic Success is an essential read for athletes, coaches, and parents.