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

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

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

Mental Imagery

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


Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience

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 

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.

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