When the mind creates visual representations in the absence of external visual stimuli. 

Visual imagery

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, some psychologists believed in Aristotle's idea that "thought is impossible without an image" , while others disagree. Most evidence pointed to thought being possible without imagery and by the 1910s, imagery was not a heavily studied topic in psychology.

Imageless thought debate 

Subjects are asked to create mental images and asked to scan them in their minds.

Mental scanning

- Spatial representations
- Propositional representations

Types of imagery representations

The conceptual peg hypothesis suggests that concrete nouns, which are high-imagery words like 'car' or 'book', are easier to remember than abstract, low-imagery nouns like 'truth' or 'justice'. This is because the mental images created by concrete words act as 'pegs' on which memories can be 'hung'. The text explains this phenomenon by noting that high-imagery words are encoded both visually and semantically, creating a more robust memory.

Conceptual Peg Hypothesis

The ability to (mentally) recreate the sensory world in the absence of external stimuli. People can imagine tastes, smells and experiences

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

- Reaction time
- Levels of analysis
- Principle of Neural Representation
- Processing in perception
- Bayesian Inference
- Mental imagery

Focuses of Research on Perception

It is something that accompanies a mechanism but is not actually part of that mechanism. Looking at that something will not tell us anything about what is going on in the "mechanism". Examples include:
- Experiences of mental imagery

Epiphenomenon

Goldstein, E. B. (2014). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience. Nelson Education.


Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience

How long it takes to respond to a stimulus

Reaction time

A lot of what someone experiences is not based on direct stimuli, rather representations in the nervous system

Principle of Neural representation

Processing in perception

Created by Thomas Bayes, who posited that our estimate of the probability of an outcome was determined by two things:
- 1) prior probability of an outcome 
- 2) likelihood of an outcome

Bayesian Inference

Mental Imagery

The study of perception involves multiple levels of analysis, extending from fundamental biological mechanisms to behavioral outcomes. These levels include:
1) Chemical processes
2) Activation of individual neurons
3) Activation of specific brain structures
4) Activation of interacting groups of brain structures
5) The conscious experience of perception
6) The resulting behavioral output or action

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