Pylyshyn ( 1981) countered this argument by claiming that these results were based on tacit knowledge of the participants, that is, the participants implicitly assumed that they processed images, whereupon they adjusted their response times to this assumption. For example, Shepard and Metzler ( 1971) showed that the angle of rotation in a visual rotation task influences the response time, which might not be the case in propositional processing. ( 1978), Kosslyn and Alper ( 1977), and Shepard and Metzler ( 1971) presented a series of behavioural experiments to prove that mental images do indeed functionally influence information processing. On the other hand, Kosslyn ( 1975, 1976, 1978), Kosslyn et al. While both sides acknowledge the existence of mental images, Pylyshyn describes it as an epiphenomenon of propositional processing, which arises as a result of the process but does not influence the process itself. Initial estimates quantify the amount of people affected at 2–3% of the world population (Faw, 2009 Zeman et al., 2020).Īphantasia provides a novel approach to the imagery debate between Kosslyn ( 1981, 2005) and Pylyshyn ( 1973, 2002, 2003), which has been going on since the 1970s. Those affected are not able to deliberately create mental images, for example when reading books or thinking of close relatives. coined the term “aphantasia”, defined as a state of reduced or absent voluntary imagery, thus for the first time systematically drawing attention to the fact that not everyone has visual imagery. Winlove et al., 2018), even though the corresponding stimuli are not within the visual field of the imagers (Finke, 1989 Richardson, 2013). Visual imagery is defined as the ability to create mental representations of stimuli that are similar to visual perceptions (Block, 1983 Dennet, 1978 cf. Therefore, a lack of attentional guidance through visual imagery in aphantasics can be assumed and interpreted as new evidence in the imagery debate, showing that mental images actually influence information processing and are not merely epiphenomena of propositional processing. These results could mainly be attributed to different task characteristics. Moriya’s Task was not capable of showing the expected effect, whereas the new developed task was. The sample in Study 1 consisted of 531 and the sample in Study 2 consisted of 325 age-matched pairs of aphantasics and non-aphantasics. In two visual search tasks, an already established one by Moriya ( Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 80(5), 1127-1142, 2018) and a newly developed one, we examined whether aphantasics are primed less by their visual imagery than non-aphantasics. The aim of the study was to examine if attentional guidance in aphantasics is impaired by their lack of visual imagery. So far, behavioural differences between aphantasics and non-aphantasics have hardly been studied as the base rate of those affected is quite low. Aphantasia is the condition of reduced or absent voluntary imagery.
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