The time it takes to imagine1
TL;DR: It was concluded that visual and speech imagery modes differ fundamentally in the manner in which they process information.
Abstract: Three experiments were conducted dealing with letter processing in visual and speech imagery. The first two experiments indicated that speech imagery is more rapid than visual imagery (about six letters per second for speech vs about two letters per second for vision). Postexperimental scaling of subjective fatigue also revealed differences between imagery modalities, with visual imagery conditions consistently more fatiguing than speech conditions. The third experiment dealt with error rates in learning to classify letters on the basis of visual image properties or on the basis of arbitrary letter names. Results showed much more efficient performance for classification based on visual image properties. It was concluded that visual and speech imagery modes differ fundamentally in the manner in which they process information.
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TL;DR: A mechanism is proposed that is able to encode the desired goal of the action and is applicable to different levels of representational organization, as well as investigating the role of posterior parietal and premotor cortical areas in schema instantiation.
Abstract: This paper concerns how motor actions are neurally represented and coded. Action planning and motor preparation can be studied using a specific type of representational activity, motor imagery. A close functional equivalence between motor imagery and motor preparation is suggested by the positive effects of imagining movements on motor learning, the similarity between the neural structures involved, and the similar physiological correlates observed in both imaging and preparing. The content of motor representations can be inferred from motor images at a macroscopic level, based on global aspects of the action (the duration and amount of effort involved) and the motor rules and constraints which predict the spatial path and kinematics of movements. A more microscopic neural account calls for a representation of object-oriented action. Object attributes are processed in different neural pathways depending on the kind of task the subject is performing. During object-oriented action, a pragmatic representation is activated in which object affordances are transformed into specific motor schemas (independently of other tasks such as object recognition). Animal as well as human clinical data implicate the posterior parietal and premotor cortical areas in schema instantiation. A mechanism is proposed that is able to encode the desired goal of the action and is applicable to different levels of representational organization.
2,154 citations
TL;DR: In the same subject, mental and actual movement times were both very stable and very close from trial to trial regardless of the tracing amplitude.
323 citations
TL;DR: Studies with split-brain patients and normal subjects reveal that two classes of processes are used to form images--ones that activate stored memories of the appearances of parts and ones that arrange parts into the proper configuration.
Abstract: Although objects in visual mental images may seem to appear all of a piece, when the time to form images is measured this introspection is revealed to be incorrect; objects in images are constructed a part at a time. Studies with split-brain patients and normal subjects reveal that two classes of processes are used to form images--ones that activate stored memories of the appearances of parts and ones that arrange parts into the proper configuration. Some of the processes used to arrange parts are more effective in the left cerebral hemisphere and some are more effective in the right cerebral hemisphere; the notion that mental images are the product of right hemisphere activity is an oversimplification.
308 citations
TL;DR: This article examined the time course of phonological encoding in speech production and concluded that subjects are monitoring their internal generation of a syllabified phonological representation by comparing monitoring latencies to targets within and between syllables.
262 citations
TL;DR: This article reviews contemporary theories of relations between mental imagery and perception and proposes three types of theories: structural, functional, and structural.
Abstract: This article reviews contemporary theories of relations between mental imagery and perception. Three types of theories are considered. Structural theories propose that mental images exhibit the same spatial and pictorial properties as real physical objects. Functional theories propose that the forma
221 citations
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