Chapter 7: Mental Images and Propositions

Mental Representation - something that stands for people or things of what you know about
them
Knowledge Representation - the form for what you know in your mind about things, ideas,
events, and so on, in the outside world.
2 KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE STRUCTURE
1. Declarative knowledge
 refers to facts that can be stated
 “knowing that”
 example: date of your birth, the name of your best friend, or the way a rabbit looks.
2. Procedural knowledge
 refers to knowledge of procedures that can be implemented.
 “knowing how”
 example: the steps involved in tying your shoelaces, adding a column of numbers, or
driving a car.
Communicating Knowledge: Pictures versus Words
 knowledge can be represented in different ways in your mind: It can be stored as a
mental picture, or in words, or abstract propositions.
 external representation and internal representation
 some ideas are better and more easily represented in pictures, whereas others are
better represented in words.
Representations
 both pictures and words may be used to represent things and ideas, but neither
form of representation actually retains all the characteristics of what is being
represented.
 Both the word cat and the picture of this cat are distinctive representations of
“catness.”
 Each type of representation has distinctive characteristics.
Picture
 As you just observed, the picture is relatively analogous (i.e., similar) to the real-world
object it represents. The picture shows concrete attributes, such as shape and relative
size.
 Even if you cover up a portion of the cat, what remains still looks like a part of a cat.
 no arbitrary rules for looking at the picture
Word
  the word cat is a symbolic representation, meaning that the relationship between the
word and what it represents is simply arbitrary.
 Germany or France, the word Katze or the word chat, respectively, would instead
symbolize the concept of a cat to you.
 are arbitrary, their use requires the application of rules.
 Symbolic representations, such as the word cat, capture some kinds of information but
not other kinds of information.
IMAGERY
 is the mental representation of things that are not currently seen or sensed by the sense
organs (Moulton & Kosslyn, 2009; Thomas, 2003).
Dual-Code Theory: Images and Symbols
Dual-code theory
 we use both pictorial and verbal codes for representing information (Paivio, 1969, 1971)
in our minds.
 These two codes organize information into knowledge that can be acted on, stored
somehow, and later retrieved for subsequent use
Analog codes
 resemble the objects they are representing.
 Just as the movements of the hands on an analog clock are analogous to the passage of
time, the mental images we form in our minds are analogous to the physical stimuli we
observe.
Symbolic code
 is a form of knowledge representation that has been chosen arbitrarily to stand for
something that does not perceptually resemble what is being represented.
 Just as a digital watch uses arbitrary symbols (typically, numerals) to represent the
passage of time, our minds use arbitrary symbols (words and combinations of words) to
represent many ideas.
Storing Knowledge as Abstract Concepts: Propositional Theory
Propositional theory
 suggests that we do not store mental representations in the form of images or mere
words. We may experience our mental representations as images, but these images are
epiphenomena—secondary and derivative phenomena that occur as a result of other
more basic cognitive processes.
 our mental representations (sometimes called “mentalese”) more closely resemble the
abstract form of a proposition. A proposition is the meaning underlying a particular
relationship among concepts.
Functional equivalence hypothesis - although visual imagery is not identical to visual
perception, it is functionally equivalent to it
Principles of Visual Imagery
Mental pictures - When we think about things, our minds often create mental pictures.
Spatial Representation- Visual imagery helps us mentally represent the spatial relationship
between objects
Object identification - We use visual imagery to recognize and identity objects based on their
visual characteristics
How does mental Rotation work?
- Mental Rotation involves rotationally transforming an object's visual mental image
MENTAL ROTATION- is like imagining turning an object in your mind. Picture grabbing a toy car
and mentally spinning it around to see it from different angles. It's your brain's way of exploring
and understanding how things look from various perspectives without actually moving them.
IMAGE SCALING- is like resizing a picture. Image Scaling is the process of adjusting the size of
the picture while trying to maintain its overall appearance. It's like zooming in or out on your
phone to get a closer or wider view of the photo.
IMAGE SCANNING- is like a mental exploration. It's when your mind moves through a mental
image as if it's a map or a picture.
REPRESENTATIONAL NEGLECT-is when someone has trouble paying attention to or noticing a
specific part of a mental image. It's like having a mental "blind spot" where certain details are
overlooked or ignored. Representational neglect is a cognitive phenomenon where some parts
of mental representations are not fully acknowledged.
Philip John Laird
-Cognitive Psychologist
-proposition
-mental model
Two Kinds of Images: Visual versus Spatial
Visual images -characteristics such as colors and shapes.
Spatial imagery - refers to images that represent spatial features such as depth dimensions,
distances
SPATIAL COGNITION- deals with the acquisition, organization, and use of knowledge about
objects and actions in two and three dimensional space.
COGNITIVE MAPS- are internal representations of our physical environment, particularly
centering on spatial relationships.
EDWARD TOLMAN- conducted some of the early research on cognitive maps in the 1930s.
Humans seem to use three types of knowledge when forming and using cognitive maps:
1. Landmark knowledge- is information about particular features at a location and which may
be based on both imaginal and propositional representations.
2. Route-road knowledge- involves specific pathways for moving from one location to another.
It may be based on both procedural knowledge and declarative knowledge.
3. Survey knowledge- involves estimated distances between landmarks, much as they might
appear on survey maps. It may be represented imaginally or propositionally.
HEURISTICS- also called rules of thumb, are cognitive strategies we sometimes use that
influence our estimations of distance.
Propositional knowledge affects imaginal knowledge, particularly when solving problems and
answering questions about images. In such situations, propositional strategies may better
explain responses than mental image-based ones.
1. Right-angle bias: People tend to think of intersections as forming 90-degree angles more
often than the intersections really do.
2. Symmetry heuristic: People tend to think of shapes as being more symmetrical than they
really are.
3. Rotation heuristic: When representing figures and boundaries that are slightly slanted,
people tend to distort the images as being either more vertical or more horizontal than they
really are.
4. Alignment heuristic: People tend to represent landmarks and boundaries that are slightly out
of alignment by distorting their mental images to be better aligned than they really are.
5. Relative-position heuristic: The relative positions of particular landmarks and boundaries is
distorted in mental images in ways that more accurately reflect people’s conceptual knowledge
about the contexts in which the landmarks and boundaries are located, rather than reflecting
the actual spatial configurations.
TEXT MAPS- we may be able to create cognitive maps from a verbal description. These
cognitive maps may be as accurate as those created from looking at a graphic map.