Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
by the concept of combustion - the process of
burning a fuel, related to acceleration of a car. He
imagined distribution of forces caused by the
intense chemical reaction between a fuel and an
oxidant (oxygen in air), and presented them as
lines of forces going away from the receding,
already invisible car. The artist also showed the
color-coded heat dispersion caused by the ac-
celerating car. He decided to present his work as
an abstract art. Some viewers may choose to see
this work as a picture of an imaginary land.
The fantastic images in art works are often
derived from artists' mental imagery - a nonverbal,
cognitive representation of objects and concepts.
The dual-coding process theory of memory pro-
posed by Allan Paivio (1970, 1971, 1986, 1991)
proposes that human cognition has separate but
interconnected and interacting memory systems:
the imaginal and the verbal. Images influence
language, values, and ideals. Images and imagery
are important in learning, reading comprehen-
sion, developing skills, concepts, as well as
and in problem solving. Imagery often plays a
role in explaining life. Imagery does not mirror
perception: imagery and perception are different
processes. We see an object, such as a pencil due
our perception, and then we recognize it as a
pencil because we compare it to a mental image
(imagery) of a pencil previously experienced and
known for its particular qualities. Thus knowledge
is important in imagery.
When we ponder where our dreams come from,
we may find partial explanation in the investiga-
tions made with the imaging techniques used to
study the regions of the brain that are involved
with cognition.
Imaging techniques provide pictures of sites
where the working memory is in action. For
example, it is possible to record how the short-
term and the long-term memory are involved in
recognizing an image of a familiar face. After a
couple of days spent at a large gathering such as
a conference one can easily recognize individuals
one met in a big group of a thousand participants.
Methods for researching imagery are, among oth-
ers physiological recordings (e.g., cerebral blood
flow measured with fMRI - functional magnetic
resonance imaging, PET scans that measure cere-
bral blood flow using positron emission tomogra-
phy, EEG - electroencephalography) and clinical
neuropsychology (e.g., of the split-brain patients).
Research made by Stephen Kosslyn et al.
(1993) showed that visual mental imagery ac-
tivates topographically organized visual cortex.
Using a combination of functional magnetic reso-
nance imaging (fMRI) and multivariate pattern
classification, Cichy, Heinzle, & Heines (2011)
found that perception and visual imagery share
cortical representations: fMRI response patterns
for different categories of imagined objects can
be used to predict the fMRI response patters for
seen objects.
Mental images and perceived stimuli rely
on the same type of representation and so are
represented similarly (Borst & Kosslyn, 2008).
According to Kosslyn (1991), mental imagery is
a collection of functions occurring in short-term
memory where we can redraw images from long-
term memory. We can develop the 3D model in a
long-term memory store. Visual imagery serves
for generation, inspection, recoding, maintenance,
and transformation of images. While generating
images, one can “mentally draw” in one's imagery
from a long-term memory, or produce images
or patterns never actually seen. Interpreting the
images allows 'zooming in' on isolated parts of
them, or scanning across them. Preserving im-
ages goes by encoding the patterns of images
into memory, remembering new combinations of
patterns, or imaging new patterns. Maintenance
of images requires effort to remember them, the
more perceptual units that are included in an
image, the more difficult it is to maintain. Trans-
formation of images involves reshaping an image
previously stored in long-term memory: rotating,
enlarging, or shrinking them at will. This work
goes in a visual buffer or a working memory - a
mental space for manipulating information about
