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Mental Imagery

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lightbulbAbout this topic
Mental imagery refers to the cognitive process of creating or recreating sensory experiences in the absence of external stimuli. It involves the visualization of objects, scenes, or events in the mind, engaging various sensory modalities, and plays a crucial role in memory, problem-solving, and creativity.
lightbulbAbout this topic
Mental imagery refers to the cognitive process of creating or recreating sensory experiences in the absence of external stimuli. It involves the visualization of objects, scenes, or events in the mind, engaging various sensory modalities, and plays a crucial role in memory, problem-solving, and creativity.

Key research themes

1. How does mental imagery relate to perception in terms of neural and cognitive mechanisms?

This research area investigates the extent of overlap or distinction between mental imagery and perception in both neural substrates and cognitive processing. Clarifying this relation is critical because many theoretical frameworks, including predictive processing accounts, posit imagery and perception share mechanisms or even are unified processes. Contrasting evidence from brain lesion, neurophysiology, and cognitive studies inform debate around perceptualism—the claim that imagination is a subset of perceptual experience—and the degree to which mental imagery depends on or diverges from perceptual processing.

Key finding: Presents empirical evidence supporting a functional and anatomical dissociation between perception and mental imagery based on double dissociation findings in brain-lesioned patients, while also noting an overlap between... Read more
Key finding: Develops novel philosophical arguments against strong perceptualism by showing that high-level content differences and cognitive penetration effects imply representational differences between imagination and perception;... Read more
Key finding: Provides a critical analysis rejecting both strong and weak forms of perceptualism, supported by clinical psychology evidence distinguishing imagery disorders from perceptual disorders; importantly, argues that the conceptual... Read more
Key finding: Argues conceptually and empirically against predictive processing accounts that unify perception and imagination by challenging their depiction of imagery as exclusively endogenous and cloistered from the external... Read more

2. What are the phenomenological and cognitive characteristics of mental imagery in emotion, memory, and conscious thought?

This theme focuses on the nature of mental imagery as it relates to emotional experience, memory recall, and conscious thinking. It investigates how imagery influences affective memory and 'as if' emotional states, the role of mental imagery in decision making and conscious will, and whether conscious thoughts necessarily involve mental images or can be non-imagistic. These studies contribute to understanding the cognitive and phenomenological architectures underlying imagery’s role in emotional regulation, memory source monitoring, and conscious mental life.

Key finding: Proposes that both episodic emotional memories and imagined emotions fundamentally involve 'affective bodily imagery,' i.e., imagistic representations of bodily feelings rather than direct perceptual experiences; this account... Read more
Key finding: Introduces the hypothesis that conscious decisions are accessed via interpretation of internal mental behavior, particularly through conscious mental imagery simulating external behavior; this imagery-based... Read more
Key finding: Challenges the common thesis that conscious thought necessarily involves quasi-perceptual mental images by presenting evidence from total aphantasia and unsymbolized thinking, where conscious thoughts occur without imagery;... Read more
Key finding: Finds that ease of imagery increases the probability of source confusion between perceived and imagined stimuli, indicating that vivid and easily generated mental images enhance similarity between perceptual and imagery... Read more

3. How do embodied, enactive, and action-based theories explain the generation and function of mental imagery?

This line of inquiry examines mental imagery from embodied cognition, enactivist, and sensorimotor theoretical perspectives, emphasizing the interconnectedness of perception, action, and cognition. It contrasts representationalist and anti-representationalist views, explores the sensorimotor contingencies involved in imagery, and addresses the ecological validity and functional significance of imagery in action simulation and motor rehabilitation. This research advances an integrated understanding of imagery as a dynamic, embodied process rather than static internal representation.

Key finding: Differentiates between enactivist and sensorimotor anti-representationalist accounts of mental imagery, arguing that enactivism's 'reenactment thesis' is unworkable without representations while sensorimotor theory,... Read more
Key finding: Reviews neuropsychological evidence that mental imagery, characterized by vividness and controllability, plays a crucial role in motor skill acquisition and rehabilitation, especially in aging populations; highlights... Read more
Key finding: Presents a model wherein forward internal models predict action consequences during motor imagery, enabling error detection in the absence of overt movement; this mechanism facilitates motor learning and simulates online... Read more
Key finding: Advocates for integrating embodied cognition with internal computational processing, emphasizing that cognition should be viewed as efficient, robust, and body-specific (E-codes) rather than purely body-based (B-codes);... Read more

All papers in Mental Imagery

This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is... more
This thesis has set out to investigate the role of music therapy in the form of the specialist Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) with a view to exploring how meanings related to adjustment from a health crisis (such as... more
Compression methods are important in many medical applications to ensure fast interactivity through large sets of images (e.g. volumetric data sets, image databases), for searching context dependant images and for quantitative analysis of... more
After the so-called "cognitive turn" (Ibsch 1990; Stockwell 2002, 60), and in the context of a renewed narratology, it is necessary to consider the evolution of the concept of focalization in connection to the study of forms of speech and... more
The study aimed at discovering the level of cognitive distortions among Yarmouk University students who were selected randomly from faculties of humanities and science. The sample of the study consisted of 1552 students. The researchers... more
This synthesis builds on the connections between language and cognition, and the parallel subdomains of linguistic metaphor and visual knowledge representation, to argue that traditional dialogue processes might aptly be employed to help... more
The Elaborated Intrusion (EI) Theory of Desire attributes the motivational force of cravings to cognitive elaboration, including imagery, of apparently spontaneous thoughts that intrude into awareness. We report a questionnaire study in... more
This report examines the intricate relationship between sleep-wake transitions and the nature of consciousness by analyzing phenomena such as sleep paralysis, hypnagogic/hypnopompic illusions, and lucid dreams. Drawing upon a pivotal... more
No transtorno de estresse pós-traumático (TEPT) é comum a ocorrência de sintomas associados a imagens mentais que remetem ao evento traumático. Estas imagens tem um impacto emocional bastante intenso, uma vez que podem se manifestar de... more
We investigated whether the visual hMT1 cortex plays a role in supramodal representation of sensory flow, not mediated by visual mental imagery. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure neural activity in sighted and... more
The study investigated the metaphors in Nicholas Spark's The Notebook. It looked at how they reveal thematic meaning and add emotional depth. Stylistic techniques and choice of words to increase readers 'immersive experience as well as... more
Cette recherche a pour objectif d'étudier les images mentales élaborées par des enfants de 4 à 10 ans, à partir d'une exploration visuelle ou haptique de formes géométriques bidimensionnelles. La tâche des enfants consiste à explorer... more
The present study investigated the effects of age and arm preference on motor imagery ability. Children (groups: 6.5, 8.3, and 10.1 years) and young adults (22.4 years) physically or mentally performed a drawing motor task with the right... more
The article discusses the question of starting over in Ernst Bloch and Aby Warburg, relating it to the notions of return and repetition, as well as to the role of imagination in the Blochian meaning of utopia. Furthermore, the author... more
Background: The COVID-19 infection spread rapidly in Malaysia, and elderly people with underlying comorbidities were affected most. The study aimed to determine the effect of exercise on QOL and mental health among elderly people residing... more
The paper sets out to examine the metaphoricity of the discourse of literary criticism dealing with poetry. The research carried out in the framework of contemporary metaphor studies relying, first of all, on the Conceptual Metaphor... more
Six US first-year university students in humanities or social science degree programmes were interviewed while solving 4 tasks on continuity and asymptotes in a required mathematics course. The focus was on how the students referred to... more
It is common for students to make mistakes while solving mathematical problems. Some of these mistakes might be caused by the false ideas, or misconceptions, that students developed during their learning or from their practice. Calculus... more
Some common performance enhancement strategies used by tennis players are related to a pre-service mental preparation routine. This study provides an insight on the efficacy of the implementation of mental routines on performance of young... more
The present study concentrates on pre-service teachers' knowledge and beliefs and their association to teaching practice in the context of teaching function with analogies. During the first phase of data collection, pre-service teachers... more
“O homem não devia poder ver o seu próprio rosto — nada é mais sinistro. A natureza deu-lhe o dom de não poder ver-se, de não poder fitar os seus próprios olhos. Só na água dos rios e dos lagos podia olhar o seu rosto. E a própria postura... more
This issue contains the abstracts submitted for presentation at the Thirteenth European Conference on Eye Movements (ECEM13), Bern, August 14 – 18, 2005, and reviewed by the Scientific Board, consisting of W. Becker, Ulm; C.J. Erkelens,... more
Objective: The majority of the current approaches of connectivity based BCI systems focus on distinguishing between different motor imagery (MI) tasks. Brain regions associated with MI are anatomically close to each other, hence these BCI... more
Observer memories, memories where one sees oneself in the remembered scene, from-the-outside, are commonly considered less accurate and genuine than visual field memories, memories in which the scene remembered is seen as one originally... more
Old age home is becoming a preferred choice for many contemporary families to send their elderly parents or relatives. It is important to help elderly people to improve their level of living quality their remaining days of life as... more
BACKGROUND AND AIM OF THE WORK Children affected by selective mutism don't speak in contexts that are unfamiliar to them or in which speaking is expected or required (e.g. school, kindergarten…). Such disorder interferes with the... more
Objective: A majority of BCI systems, enabling communication with patients with locked-in syndrome, are based on electroencephalogram (EEG) frequency analysis (e.g., linked to motor imagery) or P300 detection. Only recently, the use of... more
The pedagogical literature on improvisation in jazz and related genres is chiefly concerned with scales, chords, and other music-theoretically defined elements. On the other hand, the literature on freer forms of improvisation emphasizes... more
We examined thinking styles and its relationship with information processing, and student achievements. The Sample consists of 283 participants from Sohag faculty of Education. We used Sternberg & Wagner thinking styles inventory, and... more
Understanding the perceptions of tourists is a key element for predicting their behavior and providing them the tourist experiences that are part of their expectations. This study aims to assess destination preferences of Indian tourists,... more
The Ψ-model (Psi-model) represents a structural, reproducible framework for understanding resonance-based cognition and intuition. Developed by Anna Taranova, this model integrates mathematical formulation, empirical testing, and... more
Cognitive bias modification (CBM) procedures follow from the view that interpretive biases play an important role in the development and maintenance of anxiety. As such, understanding the link between interpretive biases and anxiety in... more
Linguistic annotation' covers any descriptive or analytic notations applied to raw language data. The basic data may be in the form of time functions -audio, video and/or physiological recordings -or it may be textual. The added notations... more
Much of the previous research regarding reflective practice has considered the training and development of reflective skills but little attention has been paid to how these are used by clinicians in practice. This study aims to understand... more
Intentionality of Strong Anticipation in Motor Behaviors Hsi-wen Daniel Liu ( hwliu@pu.edu.tw ) Center for General Education, Providence University Shalu, Taichung 433, TAIWAN, R.O.C. Abstract Pezzulo (2008) and Grush (1997, 2004, 2007)... more
In a previous article (Rush, 2016), I argued that Western Esotericism had contributed to the development of transpersonal psychology. In the present article, I continue this argument by focusing on Roberto Assagioli and comparing his work... more
"The Chemical Muse" by Dr Ammon Hillman
Translation into Russian by William Desborough
It has been suggested that creativity can be functionally segregated into two processes: spontaneous and deliberate. In this paper, we propose that the spontaneous aspect of creativity is enabled by the same neural simulation mechanisms... more
This article defends the thesis that the primary philosophical contribution to the cognitive science of memory, especially through the epistemological debate between preservationism and generativism/simulationism, lies in unveiling... more
L'immaginazione e il senso. Su alcune dimensioni dell'estetico Una conversazione con Alfredo Ferrarin Nel 2023 è stato pubblicato per Edizioni ETS Un mondo non di questo mondo. La realtà delle immagini e l'immaginazione, ultimo libro di... more
Few texts in the expressive arts therapy field have cast as enduring a shadow as Minstrels of Soul: Intermodal Expressive Therapy (Knill, Barba, & Fuchs, 1995). Thirty years on, its central tenets continue to serve not merely as... more
Nowadays, historical neighborhoods in Iran are in a state of decay due to the lack of spatial legibility with respect to their organic spatial layout. Hence, the level of interaction among people and their perception of the environment... more
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The problem of amodal perception is the problem of how we represent features of perceived objects that are occluded or otherwise hidden from us. Bence Nanay (2010) has recently proposed that we amodally perceive an object's occluded... more
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