M211A

Phenomena, Theory and Physiology of Mental Imagery

Instructors: Keith Holyoak (206-1646) and Mark Cohen (980-7453).

OUTLINE: What can we see with our eye's closed? Ever since William James, psychologists and neuroscientists have debated the nature of mental imagery. Strong behavioral data point to specific abilities and limitations in human imagery capacity. The early literature hotly debated how distinct mental imagery is as a form of internal representation. Recent contributions in neurological sciences have fueled and extended the bases of this debate. This seminar will explore controversies in Mental Imagery and current research directed at understanding its neural basis.

Students will read in classical and recent cognitive, behavioral and functional neuroimaging literature, and will present and discuss these readings.

Recommended supplementary readings:

"Principles of Mental Imagery", R.A. Finke, Bradford Books:Cambridge ISBN 0-262-06122. Suggested by Keith, this book gives a summary of the major issues that form a debate in the cognitive psychology of Mental Imagery. May be out of print - the link is to Amazon.com!

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Mental Imagery (on-line) Many references that may be of interest.

Imagination, Mental Imagery, Consciousness, and Cognition: Scientific, Philosophical and Historical Approaches. Nigel Thomas web site. This is a fascinating set of links and current discussions.

General Announcements

Sign-up

Interested students are encouraged to sign up for this course as soon as possible as space will be limited to fifteen people. If registering conventionally (not by web), please also send mail to the instructors, so that we can immediately start sending out class announcements.

Registered students in the neurosciences IDP will have first priority for class space, should the issue arise. Otherwise, we certainly encourage auditing, though we strongly recommend that anyone wishing to audit the course also make a point of doing the problem sets and exams in order to get the most out of the course. We have started a registration form for those who would like to attend. Please use this form to add your name to the list of registrants.

Reading material and texts

The readings will be available from Suzie Vader in room Gonda Center1506D.

• STUDENTS WILL BE EXPECTED TO HAVE COMPLETED THE FIRST WEEK's READINGS BEFORE THE FIRST CLASS!

Meeting time and place

Class meets on Mondays from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. beginning October 2 in the Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center conference room.

1. The Phenomenon:

Shepard R, Meltzer J. Mental rotations of three-dimensional objects. Science 1971; 171: 701-3

Pinker S, Finke RA. Emergent two-dimensional patterns in images rotated in depth. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 1980; 6: 244-64.

2. Theoretical Questions: the Imagery Debate

Pylyshyn ZW. What the Mind's Eye Tells the Mind's Brain: A Critique of Mental Imagery. Psychological Bulletin 1973; 80:1-24

Kosslyn SM, Pomerantz JR. Imagery, propositions, and the form of internal representations. Cognitive Psychology 1977; 9:52-76.

3. Methodological Debates

Kosslyn SM, Ball TM, Reiser BJ. Visual images preserve metric spatial information: evidence from studies of image scanning. J Exp Psychol [Hum Percept] 1978; 4: 47-60

Intons-Peterson MJ. Imagery paradigms: How vulnerable are they to experimenters' expectations? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance 1983; 9:394-412.

Jolicoeur P, Kosslyn SM. Is time to scan visual images due to demand characteristics? Mem Cognit 1985; 13: 320-32.

4. Current Thinking from Neuroimaging and… (from a TINS topical issue)

Roland PE, Gulyas B. Visual imagery and visual representation [see comments]. Trends Neurosci 1994; 17: 281-7; discussion 94-7.

Sakai K, Miyashita Y. Visual imagery: an interaction between memory retrieval and focal attention [comment] [published erratum appears in Trends Neurosci 1994 Sep;17(9):367] [see comments]. Trends Neurosci 1994; 17: 287-9.

Moscovitch M, Behrmann M, Winocur G. Do PETS have long or short ears? Mental imagery and neuroimaging [comment]. Trends Neurosci 1994; 17: 292-4

Kosslyn SM, Ochsner KN. In search of occipital activation during visual mental imagery [comment]. Trends Neurosci 1994; 17: 290-2.

5. Central Mechanisms of Mental Imagery

Cohen MS, Kosslyn SM, Breiter HC, DiGirolamo GJ, Thompson WL, Bookheimer SY, et al. Changes in Cortical Activity During Mental Rotation: A mapping study using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Brain 1996; 119: 89-100

Goebel R, Khorram-Sefat D, Muckli L, Hacker H, Singer W. The constructive nature of vision: direct evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging studies of apparent motion and motion imagery. Eur J Neurosci 1998; 10: 1563-73.

and... (more to come)

6. Clinical Questions and Findings

Zeki S. Cerebral akinetopsia (visual motion blindness). A review. Brain 1991; 111: 811-24.

tbd (Martha Farah)

7. Hallucinations, Sleep and Dreaming

Green MF, Kinsbourne M. Subvocal activity and auditory hallucinations: clues for behavioral treatments? Schizophr Bull 1990; 16: 617-25.

Silbersweig DA, Stern E, Frith C, Cahill C, Holmes A, Grootoonk S, et al. A functional neuroanatomy of hallucinations in schizophrenia. Nature 1995; 378: 176-9.

Maquet P, Peters J, Aerts J, Delfiore G, Degueldre C, Luxen A, et al. Functional neuroanatomy of human rapid-eye-movement sleep and dreaming. Nature 1996; 383: 163-6.

8. Hemispheric Specialization?

Corballis MC, Sergent J. Imagery in a commissurotomized patient. Neuropsychologia 1988; 26: 13-26.

Kosslyn SM, Koenig O, Barrett A, Cave CB. Evidence for two types of spatial representations: Hemispheric specialization for categorical and coordinate relations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance 1989; 15.

Weeks 9 and 10 will be current and student-initiated readings.

This page is maintained by Mark Cohen [updated 09.09.00]