Neither pictures nor propositions: what can we learn from a mental image?

Publisher: University Of Toronto Press Country of Publication: Canada NLM ID: 0372713 Publication Model: Print Cited Medium: Print ISSN: 0008-4255 (Print) Linking ISSN: 00084255 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Can J Psychol Subsets: MEDLINE

Publication: Toronto : University Of Toronto Press
Original Publication: Toronto, Univ. of Toronto Press.

Concept Formation* ; Imagination* ; Mental Recall* ; Pattern Recognition, Visual* ; Psychomotor Performance*; Adult ; Humans

In an earlier paper, we reported that subjects have great difficulty in finding alternative construals of their own mental images. In the present paper, we examine how subjects can nonetheless learn from their mental images. We argue that mental images, like percepts, are meaningful depictions. As such, mental images do depict appearance but are also inherently understood in a certain way, and this understanding influences the phenomenal appearance of the represented form. This, in turn, governs what the form will be seen to resemble and what the form is likely to call from memory. We report four experiments in support of this view. In each experiment, subjects are briefly shown outline shapes and asked to form a mental image of each shape. Subjects are then asked what familiar form the imaged shape resembles. Subjects routinely find target shapes in their images when the target is compatible both with the imaged geometry and with how that geometry is organized and understood. When the sought-for target is compatible with image geometry but not with how the image is understood, subjects reliably fail to find the target shape in their images.

Date Created: 19910901 Date Completed: 19911202 Latest Revision: 20191022

20240627

10.1037/h0084297

1933672