Visual Imagery Questions and Answers

CHAPTER 10: Visual Imagery MULTIPLE CHOICE 1. Mental imagery involves a. experiencing a sensory impression in the absence of sensory input. b. mental representations of the current sensory inputs. c. sensory representations of a stimulus. d. all of these ANS: A 2. One of Sarah’s friends asks her to describe her new house by asking her how many windows are on the front of it. After a minute, Sarah answers 12. She has most likely used _____ in answering the question. a. visual search b. her visual icon c. visual imagery d. mental chronometry ANS: C 3. Ira and his sister are playing “Name that Tune,” the object of which is to name the title of the song when given the song’s first line. Ira suggests the line “Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?” His sister can’t come up with the answer at first, but realizing that the title is often embedded in the lyrics, she tries to sing them silently to herself. She then bursts out “Ah! It’s 'Winter Wonderland'!" It is most likely that Ira’s sister used _____ in playing the game. a. mental chronometry b. mental synthesis c. visual imagery d. inner audition ANS: D 4. Examples like Paul McCartney’s composition of the song “Yesterday” and Jack Nicklaus’s improvement of his golf swing demonstrate a connection between imagery and a. dual coding. b. dreams. c. inner audition. d. the visual buffer. 5. Behaviorists branded the study of imagery as being unproductive because a. some people have great difÏculty forming visual images. b. visual images vary in detail. c. visual images are invisible to everyone except the person experiencing them. d. the imageless thought debate was unresolved. ANS: C 6. “Early” researchers of imagery (beginning with Aristotle until just prior to the dominance of behaviorism) proposed all of the following ideas EXCEPT a. thought is impossible without an image. b. images are one of the three basic elements of consciousness. c. imagery requires a special mechanism. d. imagery is not required for thinking. ANS: C 7. Which statement below is most closely associated with the early history of the study of imagery? a. Imagery is based on spatial mechanisms like those involved in perception. b. Thought is always accompanied by imagery. c. People can rotate images of objects in their heads. d. Imagery is closely related to language. 8. of a. b. c. d. Paivio proposed the conceptual peg hypothesis. His work suggests which the following would be most difÏcult to remember? Baseball America Apple pie Freedom ANS: D 9. Peggy is participating in a paired-associate learning experiment. During the study period, she is presented with pairs of words such as boat-hat and car-house. While taking the test, she would be presented with a. b___ - h___. b. car. c. house. d. a blank piece of paper for free recall. 10. The conceptual peg hypothesis would predict enhanced memory for which word pair? a. True lies b. Amazing grace c. Valley girl d. Mission impossible ANS: C 11. Shepard and Metzler measured the time it took for participants to decide whether two objects were the same (two different views of the same object) or different (two different objects). These researchers inferred cognitive processes by using a. image scanning. b. mental chronometry. c. epiphenomena. d. propositional representations. 12. Dominic is at a job interview sitting across from the company’s CEO, Ms. Bing. While she takes a phone call, Dominic tries to recall her first name. Her business card is on the desk, but its orientation is not facing Dominic straight on. The business card has the initial of Ms. Bing’s first name, so Dominic mentally rotates that initial letter into a straight-up orientation. For which angle (compared to the final straight-up orientation) would you predict Dominic would be fastest in identifying the initial? a. 30 degrees b. 60 degrees c. 90 degrees d. 180 degrees ANS: A 13. Shepard and Metzler’s “image rotation” experiment was so influential and important to the study of cognition because it demonstrated a. how easy mental rotation is for humans. b. that humans cannot successfully rotate mental images beyond 90 degrees. c. that humans can only perform mental rotation on “real-world” objects. d. imagery and perception may share the same mechanisms. ANS: D 14. Ben has had problems with the pipes in his apartment. First, he had a clog in his bathroom sink, and then two months later, his garbage disposal in the kitchen sink clogged. Ben’s superintendant told him he was not adequately flushing the debris from his pipes. She suggested that he run the water a little longer and visualize the debris (be it carrot peelings or toothpaste) traveling through the pipes all the way out to the sewer connection in the street. Using this technique, Ben has had no more clogs. The superintendant’s suggestion involved a. image synthesis. b. mental scanning. c. method of loci. d. propositional representations. 15. The scanning task used by Kosslyn involves a. visual icons. b. mental images. c. perceptual images. d. none of these 16. Mental-scanning experiments found a. a positive linear relationship between scanning time and distance on the image. b. a negative linear relationship between scanning time and distance on the image. c. a constant scanning time for all locations on an image. d. that imagery does not represent spatial relations in the same way perceptual information does. ANS: A 17. Luis is taking his girlfriend, Rosa, to a resort town neither one of them has visited. Luis wants to make a good impression on Rosa, so he spends the week before the trip reading about fun places to go while they are there. He also memorizes a map of the small resort town so he can lead her around without bothering to ask for directions. When they arrive, they first visit a botanical garden. When Rosa says, “Where to next?” Luis conjures a mental image of the map and says, “art museum.” Let’s assume the garden was six inches due south on the map and that it took Luis four seconds to scan the map image between the two. After they visit the museum, Luis takes Rosa to a fancy restaurant. On the map, the restaurant was three inches northwest of the museum, so it is most likely that when Luis scanned the image to find the restaurant, the scan took approximately _____ seconds. a. 2 b. 3 c. 4 d. 6 ANS: A 18. The “imagery debate” is concerned with whether imagery a. actually exists. b. can be used to solve spatial problems. c. is similar for all people. d. is based on mechanisms related to language. ANS: D 19. Kosslyn’s island experiment used the _____ procedure. a. mental scanning b. categorization c. priming d. mental walk ANS: A 20. Kosslyn interpreted the results of his research on imagery (such as the island experiment) as supporting the idea that the mechanism responsible for imagery involves ____ representations. a. epiphenomenal b. propositional c. spatial d. unilateral ANS: C 21. Sometimes a behavioral event can occur at the same time as a cognitive process, even though the behavior isn’t needed for the cognitive process. For example, many people look toward the ceiling when thinking about a complex problem, even though “thinking” would likely continue if they didn’t look up. This describes a(n) a. epiphenomenon. b. inner scribe. c. convergent behavior. d. propositional behavior. ANS: A 22. OVER (MOON, MIAMI) is a _____ representation. a. depictive b. spatial c. propositional d. descriptive ANS: C 23. The propositional approach uses all of the following to describe the mechanism responsible for mental imagery EXCEPT a. nodes. b. language. c. spatial layouts. d. symbols. ANS: C 24. Carly is an interior design student. As part of her internship, she is redesigning a small kitchen for a client. She would like to expand the kitchen and add a dining area. Before creating sketches for the client, she imagines the new layout in her mind, most likely using a. tacit knowledge. b. a proposition. c. the method of loci. d. a depictive representation. ANS: D 25. Which of the following has been used as an argument AGAINST the idea that imagery is spatial in nature? a. The results of scanning experiments b. Depictive representations c. The tacit-knowledge explanation d. none of these (they all support the idea that imagery is spatial) ANS: C 26. In their imagery study, Finke and Pinker presented a four-dot display briefly to participants. After a two-second delay, participants then saw an arrow, and their task was to indicate whether the arrow would have pointed to any of the dots in the previous display. The significance of their results was they called into question the ____ explanation of imagery. a. epiphenomenon b. depictive representation c. spatial representation d. tacit-knowledge ANS: D 27. Suppose we asked people to form simultaneous images of two or more animals such as a rabbit alongside an elephant. Then, we ask them basic questions about the animals. For example, we might ask if the rabbit has whiskers. Given our knowledge of imagery research, we would expect the fastest response to this question when the rabbit is imagined alongside a. a coyote. b. another rabbit. c. an elephant. d. a fly. ANS: D 28. Kosslyn concluded that the image field is limited in size. This conclusion was drawn from the _____ experiment. a. image scanning b. mental walk c. mental synthesis d. mental set 29. Suppose that, as a participant in an imagery study, you are asked to memorize the four outside walls of a three-story rectangular house. Later, you are asked to report how many windows are on the front of the house. You will probably be fastest to answer this question if you create an image as though you were standing a. right at the front door. b. two feet from the front door. c. at the far side of the front yard, away from the house. d. one mile away from the house. ANS: C 30. Perky's imagery study from the early 1900s had participants describe images of objects that were dimly projected onto a screen. The significance of Perky's results was that a. screen images interfered with people’s ability to form mental images. b. people were unconsciously influenced by the projected images when forming their mental images. c. the screen images had no effect on people’s mental images. d. people “used” the screen images to create their mental images but only when the objects were unfamiliar. 31. Perky’s experiment, in which participants were asked to “project” visual images of common objects onto a screen, showed that a. imagery and perception are two different phenomena. b. imagery and perception can interact with one another. c. there are large individual differences in people’s ability to create visual images. d. creating a visual image can interfere with a perceptual judgment task. 32. Imagery neurons respond to a. all visual images. b. only visual images in a specific category. c. visual images as well as objects in a specific category. d. all objects. ANS: C 33. Suppose we ask people to perform the following cognitive tasks. Which is LEAST likely to strongly activate the visual cortex? a. Imagine the meaning of the word “ethics.” b. Imagine your car first from far away and then how it looks as you walk closer to it. c. Imagine a typical unsharpened pencil. Approximate its length in inches. d. Imagine a tic-tac-toe game proceeding from start to finish. ANS: A 34. Suppose you were conducting a brain imaging experiment to investigate the overlap between brain areas activated by perceiving an object and those activated by imagining it. Which of the following best describes your investigation's baseline condition? a. A baseline condition is only needed to determine which areas were activated by imagery. b. A baseline condition is only needed to determine which areas were activated by perception. c. The baseline condition is needed for determining imagery activation and for determining perception activation. d. Since you are comparing perception activation to imagery activation, no baseline condition is needed. ANS: C 35. Ganis and coworkers used fMRI to measure brain activation for perception and imagery of objects. Their results showed that a. there is no difference between the activation caused by perception and by imagery. b. perception and imagery activate the same areas near the back of the brain, but imagery activates more of the frontal lobe than does perception. c. perception and imagery activate the same areas of the frontal lobe, but imagery activates more of the back of the brain than perception does. d. perception and imagery activate the same areas of the frontal lobe, but perception activates more of the back of the brain than imagery does. ANS: D 36. Amedi and coworkers used fMRI to investigate the differences between brain activation for perception and imagery. Their findings showed that when participants were ____, some areas associated with non-visual sensation (such as hearing and touch) were ____. a. creating images; activated b. creating images; deactivated c. perceiving stimuli; activated d. perceiving stimuli; deactivated 37. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is used to a. temporarily disrupt the functioning of a brain area. b. permanently remove (or lesion) a part of the brain. c. permanently disrupt the function of a part of the brain but leave it intact. d. temporarily awaken areas of the brain that are non-responsive to other input. ANS: A 38. Kosslyn's transcranial magnetic stimulation experiment on brain activation that occurs in response to imagery found that the brain activity in the visual cortex a. is an epiphenomenon. b. can be inferred using mental chronometry. c. supports the idea that the mechanism responsible for imagery involves propositional representations. d. plays a causal role in both perception and imagery. ANS: D 39. Your text describes the case of M.G.S. who underwent brain surgery as treatment for severe epilepsy. Testing of M.G.S. pre- and post-surgery revealed that the right visual cortex is involved in the a. size of the field of view. b. recognition of objects in the left side of space. c. ability to visually recognize objects. d. ability to draw objects from memory. ANS: A 40. Your text describes imagery performance of a patient with unilateral neglect. This patient was asked to imagine himself walking in a familiar plaza and to report the objects he saw. His behavior shows a. neglect manifests itself in perception only, not in imagery. b. neglect occurred in imagery such that some objects in the plaza were never reported. c. neglect occurred in imagery so that the patient, imagining the walk from one direction and neglecting the left side of the plaza, was then unable to imagine walking the plaza from the other direction. d. neglect always occurred on the left side of the image, with “left side” being determined by the direction in which the patient imagined he was walking. ANS: D 41. A circular plate rests at the center of a small square table. Around the table are a total of four chairs, one along each side of the square table. A person with unilateral neglect sits down in one of the chairs and eats from the plate. After he is “finished,” he moves to the next chair on his right and continues to eat from the plate. Assuming he never moves the plate and he continues with this procedure (moving one chair to the right and eating) how many chairs will he have to sit in to eat all the food on the plate? a. 4 b. 3 c. 2 d. 1 42. To explain the fact that some neuropsychological studies show close parallels between perceptual deficits and deficits in imagery, while other studies do not find this parallel, it has been proposed that the mechanism for imagery is located at _____ visual centers and the mechanism for perception is located at _____ visual centers. a. lower; higher b. higher; lower c. both lower and higher; higher d. higher; both lower and higher ANS: D 43. In explaining the paradox that imagery and perception exhibit a double dissociation, Behrmann and coworkers suggested that perception necessarily involves _____ processing and imagery starts as a _____ process. a. bottom-up; bottom-up b. top-down; top-down c. bottom-up; top-down d. top-down; bottom-up ANS: C 44. In drawing conclusions about the relationship between imagery and perception, a notable difference between them is that a. perception and imagery processes do not share the same brain mechanisms. b. it is harder to manipulate mental images than perceptual images. c. imagery is more stable than perception. d. imagery occurs more automatically than perception. 45. Wilma is a famous chef. Since she does not like to share her secret family recipes, she does not write down her special creations, which makes it difÏcult to remember their ingredients. To aid her memory, she has created a unique “mental walk” that she takes to recall each recipe. For each one, she has a familiar “route” she can imagine walking through (e.g., from the end of her driveway to her living room) where she places each item in the recipe somewhere along the way (e.g., Tabasco sauce splattered on the front door). By doing so, Wilma is using _____ to organize her memories. a. mental synthesis b. paired-associate learning c. the pegword technique d. method of loci ANS: D 46. The technique in which things to be remembered are placed at different locations in a mental image of a spatial layout is known as a. the pegword technique. b. method of loci. c. paired-associate learning. d. a propositional representation. 47. The pegword technique is particularly suitable for use when you need to remember items based on their a. order. b. importance. c. concreteness. d. bizarreness. ANS: A 48. As described in your text, the pegword technique relies on all of the following EXCEPT a. associations. b. propositions. c. rhymes. d. visualizations. 49. The lesson to be learned from the imagery techniques for memory enhancement (for example, the pegword technique) is that these techniques work because a. distinctive images tend to provide easy “magical” improvements in memory. b. they tap into reliable ways to develop “photographic” memory. c. their flexible, undefined structures allow rememberers to spontaneously organize information in any way they want. d. they showcase the fact that memory improvement requires a great deal of practice and perseverance. ANS: D 50. The mental simulation approach for solving mechanical problems is analogous to the idea that visual imagery involves ____ representations. a. spatial b. propositional c. symbolic d. verbal ANS: A 51. The water-pouring problem, in particular, shows that its solution using imagery cannot depend on a. a rule-based approach. b. mental simulation. c. tacit-knowledge. d. working memory. ANS: C 52. The rule-based approach to mechanical problem-solving is analogous to the idea that visual imagery involves ____ representations. a. spatial b. propositional c. tacit d. neuron ESSAY 1. Describe the conceptual peg hypothesis. As examples, use the experimental results from the presentation of concrete vs. abstract noun pairs. Explain the paired-associate learning task, and provide examples of stimuli that had high recall in the task. 2. Discuss mental rotation experimental results and mental-scanning experimental results that support the idea that the spatial experience for both imagery and perception match the layout of the actual stimulus. 3. Describe the spatial and propositional explanations of the mechanisms responsible for imagery. Also, explain how the propositional explanation would account for the results of Kosslyn's island mental-scanning experiment. 4. Explain the mental walk task. Describe the concept of “overflow” as it applies to the imaging of large and small objects. What do the results of mental walk experiments tell us about properties of the image field? Which side of the “imagery debate” do these findings support? 5. Much has been learned about imagery using physiological techniques. Explain how each of these techniques (brain imaging, removal of part of the brain, neuropsychology, and single-neuron recordings) has demonstrated parallels between imagery and perception. 6. Describe in detail two techniques that use imagery to improve memory. Explain the underlying principles that define why imagery works successfully as a memory enhancer. 7. Describe the evidence showing that solving mechanical problems can involve mental simulation, and explain how this evidence relates to visual imagery.