Imagery in the Development of Concepts

IMAGERY in the development of concepts. • • • • • • • • Once we have abstracted a bond, we need to be able to do something more than just remember it. We need to compare it to the bonds of other objects. The major process here is imagery. Imagery is a quasi-perceptual experience of which we are aware, but which occurs in the absence of an external stimulus and which has different consequences than an external stimulus. It is a quasi-perceptual because its structure in our consciousness is similar to that of a percept. We see, hear, smell and feel things, usually somewhat fuzzily, but sometimes so powerfully and clearly that it is impossible to distinguish them from reality. When I take a hearing test, for example, and the tones are at threshold, I cannot often tell whether I am imagining the tone or whether there really is one. In those instances where I am imaging a tone, I experience it in the absence of a stimulus. The tone, then originates from within my head. Yet I am aware of its presence, just like a percept. If I raise my finger every time I hear the tone, that wasnt there, the consequence is a negative instead of a positive hearing report. This is not what I expect. Hence, the consequence of images are different than those of percepts based on reality. • Within this broad definition of imagery there are four different kinds resulting from different processes, no doubt. They are: o 1. After Imagery, o 2. Eidetic Imagery, o 3. Memory Imagery and o 4. Imaginative Imagery. After Imagery: This is probably the most concrete of the imagery experiences. It is an involuntary process that comes on the heels of intense stimulation which is abruptly halted. • • • • Almost everyone who has had a flash picture taken, has experienced the after image of the flash bulb. This after image may be intense, may last for seconds and will move as we shift our gaze. Children generally have stronger after imagery than adults. The prolongation of the experience is thought to help the their perceptual processes by giving them more time to decode the input. The same will be true for Eidetic Imagery as we shall see. For example, if they have to recall something like the row of patters shown below, they simply look at it and then when the patters are removed they still see the after image. Adults, on the other hand, typically try to remember them verbally by name. • One technique for developing after imagery is called "flashing." This involves looking at something bright for a few seconds and then quickly closing your eyes. You then concentrate on the after image you experience. Eidetic Imagery: This is similar to after imagery in that it originates as a result intense stimulation and aids the perceptual process. It differs, however, in a number of important ways. • • • • First, the experience from which it stems may last for a long time and may not end abruptly, although it can be the other way. Secondly, the image may occur immediately after the experience or days, months or years later. Thirdly, the image, in the visual modality, does not move with the eyes. Instead it stays constant and can be scanned. Here is how Vygotsky described it: o o "Children under about 7 years of age seem to approach this task differently from adults in our culture. They appear to use eidetic imagery to keep track of things. They take a kind of 'mental snapshot' of the collection of items. When you ask them to recall the objects they've looked at, they will often close their eyes, and you will see their eyes moving behind their eye-lids, as though they are looking at the image they have retained to see what objects are in which position. (Literate) adults use different strategy: we try and • • • • • • • create a verbal list of the objects, and rehearse this to remember what was there. o The children are using 'elementary mental functions', the adults are not." Vygotsky used eidetic imagery himself as he did have a photographic memory. In Hawaii, when I was on my surfboard of Waikiki, when I should have been chasing insects in Manoa, I would spend six hours straight watching the waves come in. When I finally went home and was sitting in the vets dormitory, the whole panorama of the waves would appear automatically before my eyes. I could see the waves come and break and I could scan them from right to left. Obviously, this is an aid to perception and memory. Again, children are found to have strong eidetic imagery ability (see the notes). This is why re-reading books and telling stories many times to children is so beneficial. The sentences of the stories are replayed through eidetic imagery in the minds of children frequently throughout the day. How do we know? Because we hear the children frequently repeating out loud bits and pieces of the stories they have heard. This mental replay gives children more opportunity to draw from this linguistic input, the language principles which they are striving to learn. Most adults lose eidetic imagery, although it is not necessarily so, and some do retain this skill. • • • • • • • • There was a senior professor in our department who read hisreports at faculty meetings from a blank sheet of paper. After I had obtained tenure, I ventured to inquire about the practice. He explained that he had good eidetic imagery and that it was easy for him to write the reports at home and then glance at a blank sheet during the meeting. The outline appeared in his mind so clearly in this mind that he need only read it off the blank page. In this way he had been able to gain some control over the eidetic imagery process. Some adults can even read a telephone book and reread from their imagery the names from any page. This skill does not equate with intelligence, however, since many who do this are retarded. In the NOTES, for example is a short excerpt of a boy (a man now) who was retarded and blind, but who has the ability not only to retain long streams of speech he has heard, but also to play (imitate) on a piano complex songs which he has heard only once. What's even more intriguing is that he has never had formal piano lessons. He apparently has rich neural connections between his auditory eidetic imagery processes and the spatial and motor areas of the brain. Eidetic imagery, however, is not synonymous with memory. In some cases it is actually contra productive. It changes recollections of reality, usually according to the Laws of Pragnanz. • • • • • • In my case, for example, the eidetic images of the waves were bigger, better shaped and more frequent than in reality. Dr. Oliver Sacks, in his book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, relates a case of an artist in San Francisco. He had been forced as a child to leave his home village in Italy during the Second World War. At one point in his life he started having short but strong eidetic images. They were always of this town. In time, they became more intense to the point where they blocked out reality. Someone suggested that he draw what he saw, which he did. Up to that point, he had not been an artist, but here he discovered he had a latent skill. He drew many pictures, but only of that town. What was amazing is that they were extremely accurate in their detail. The exception was that he never imaged nor drew people in any of his scenes. We all experience eidetic imagery when songs go through our head. We can improve our own eidetic imagery simply by being aware of it when it occurs. Memory Imagery, unlike the other images we have discussed, is not tied so closely to recent or intense stimulation; and it is a voluntary process. We do have considerable control over it and use it for solving problems of many kinds. • Below, for example, are two exercises of inductive reasoning. It will take the use of memory imagery to solve these problems. • Based on the series of pictures which follow, which picture in the bottom row would complete the series in the top row? o • I'm sure you concluded that the answer was "d." Here is a slightly harder one now. Which picture would you select from the bottom row below, to complete the series in the top row? • • • You probably found yourself manipulating those images of the figures in your mind as you strove to find that the answer was "b." As you may have discovered in the above examples, there are two parameters to memory imagery-Vividness and Control. Vividness: This is the clarity of the image. Can you imagine, for example, how your room looked when you left it this morning. o I can envision the bare closet in my home office with all the clothes slumped in a heap on the floor. I can picture the bed in the corner with the mattress showing because the covers, pillows and a week of dirty laundry are all spread across the floor from wall to wall. o I can even see some dried orange peels scattered about, and a few banana peels and one apple core piled on the computer keyboard. o For me, there is even an auditory image of the sound of my wife screaming words I can't repeat, o These memory images are not as vivid as a movie, but typically clear enough for us to describe past events. That's helpful for remembering details but not necessarily for solving problems. o To solve problems, we must be able to control or change the images. Control: I can, for example, with some effort imagine how my home office might look cleaned up, with the clothes in the closet pressed and hung in the same direction one inch apart. o I can see the bed made so tightly that a quarter would bounce off it if it were dropped on the blankets. The floor is so cleaned and polished that I can see my reflection; and the lumps on my arm, which my wife gave me are all have gone away. o • when she entered the room to inquire about a strange odor in the house. Actually, my office at work brings up the same images. Not a pretty sight! o o • • Control involves mental manipulation of the images. In the following two examples, lets see how well you do. In your mind, pull the ends of the strings (below) in each picture and tell which ones would form a knot, as opposed to just becoming straight That was a real trip and the answer was of course "b" and "c." This example below, for me at least, is a little harder. You have to tell which of the first pair of dice could be rotated to become the second. You have to rotate them in your mind keeping all the dots in order. • • • I find this very difficult. Interesting that such tasks appear on intelligence tests. But it really is an imagery process. The answer here is... ...the middle pair of dice. Go back and take a look at it. Below is a cute imagery task that is more appropriate for children (and some full professors who majored in Tropical Agriculture). Such activities will exercise these imagery processes and improve them. Can you tell which butterfly has no shadow? • • • • You have to match them in your minds. The answer, of course there, is number 1. Actually, the matter of control has some very powerful prospects for self-improvement and performance. In sports for example, I have heard an Olympic broad-jump champion describe how he would image his run and his leap in detail before doing it. There are (see the Notes) accounts of how basketball performance has been improved through imagery. Imagery is also used in improving sales, public speaking and overall self concept. Our focus here, however, is the role of imagery in problem solving. The particular problem facing young children learning language is why are two different things given the same name? What do they have common? o To answer this they must abstract the bonds from one object and match them with the bonds of another.  Here (below) is an example of imagery used to match objects. Notice that to find the matching object you must abstract parts and qualities, and then manipulate them in your mind as you scan and compare them to each potential match.  And again, here (below) is a similar situation in which imagery is used to develop a category (ie., which two in each row are the same) on the basis of matching bonds. Imaginative Imagery: Some authors, portray imaginative imagery as the process which is used to solve problems. It is the creative side of thought. • • • • In other descriptions, imaginative imagery is described as a creative process, but is relatively involuntary, occurring at sub-conscious levels and being expressed through dreams and daydreams. In others yet, it is simply the images of dreams, day dreams hallucinations and psychoses. The importance of dreaming as a sign or mechanism of mental health is a fascinating topic but not the focus of our discussion here. Since the imagery processes are important to facilitate perception (eg.. after and eidetic imagery) and for solving problems of comparison (eg., memory imagery), then we are interested in the question... What can we do to facilitate the development of imagery processes in children? The answer is, a lot! And we should start as early as possible in the child's life, to take advantage of the fast neural growth rate. Activities that involve imagery will be the name of the game. Here are some ideas, although you probably do many of them already. o Peek-a-boo: Initially, activities that encourage the concept of object permanence are relevant to imagery. Lots of variations of the "Peek-a-boo" game where the child learns that out of sight is not out of existence. o Hide and Seek: Piaget suggests hiding objects, like a bottle or a pacifier, so that a baby can search for them.  In the process of searching, they are demonstrating they have an image or awareness of the object even though it is not in view.  If they do not, they may simply cry or become interested in something else after the object disappears.  Piaget suggests in those instances, where the child doesnt think to search, that we should only partially hide an object; and then gradually decrease the amount left showing until the child learns to image it in its absence.  At this point we would say the child is also demonstrating object permanence. o Imitation: Piaget also notes that the outward manifestation of imagery is imitation. To imitate is to image.  Hence, "copy cat" games are good for imagery. Patty-Cake from Mother Goose is a good example. o o o o Pretending: Children love to be mother or daddy, or a policeman or a ballet dancer. This is a somewhat more complex form of imitation.  But it is where imagery and symbolization interface. Pretending in general is good for imagery and the symbolic processes. Games: There are many games which are excellent for developing imagery. One in particular for three and four year olds, if not younger is "Concentration," where cards are faced down and two are turned over each time. If they match the child gets them.  Chess must be the grandfather of all imaging games. Players must image many moves ahead for both themselves and their adversary. Of course for the three year olds, vastly simplified rules and goals must be adapted. Unless a parent is very facile with the game of chess, other games are probably more appropriate.  I am sure that you can think of many other games that involve imagery. Repetition: As we discussed in eidetic imagery, anything done repetitively will foster imagery. This becomes particularly relevant when children ask to have the same book read to them many times. They will, as a result, hear excerpts of the stories al  You will actually hear children reciting many of the phrases from the stories they have repeatedly heard. This echolalic activity is the result of the eidetic auditory images they hear in their head, much as we often hum a tune that is repeating in our minds. Routines, of course, are an important source of repetitions. Like re-reading a book, the language o used in routines will also be played back to the children as they wend their way through the day. Reading: The BIG GUN for developing imagery is READING. You start reading to the child a day or so after they are born and you stop when they are 18 or married, which ever comes first.  Initially, you read the same books (for example, Mother Goose) over and over. This facilitates eidetic imagery which will facilitate the child's analysis of language prosody (melody), grammar and semantics.  Later, an increasing variety of books can be included. The story line of these books with their descriptions of characters, places and events will exercise imagery of children like nothing else. This is where Television and Movies cheat the child. At a time when children need to be exercising their imagery, someone else through technology is handing it to them on a silver platter. TV and Movies today "let it all hang out!" They leave nothing to the imagination.  As the children watch TV, as they often do for more hours than their father works, it does nothing for the development of their neurological infra-structure of imaging, with one exception perhaps.  It may leave them with some eidetic images that are quickly created because of their emotional impact--like the frightening flashbacks of war veterans. Our kids can do without this, I'm sure!  The same can be said for video games.  An even a bigger loss, is that when TV and video games are available, children will not o read for themselves. They will not get that advanced practice in imagery that they need to be good readers later in life.  Then when they try to read books, the words fail to conjure up any pictures in their mind that they can use. Hence, reading is unrewarding, difficult and of little practical value. To summarize, once the bonds have been abstracted through the figure-ground processes and have been manipulated through imagery, it remains to for objects to be associated in some systematic fashion. This is the Generalization process which we will be looking at next.