Mental Imagery

191 Pages·1969·6.464 MB·English

by  Alan Richardson (auth.)

MENTALIMAGERY
MENTAL IMAGERY
ALAN RICHARDSON
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
ISBN 978-3-662-37109-1 ISBN 978-3-662-37817-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-37817-5
© Alan Richardson 1969
Originally published by Springer Publishing Company, Inc. in 1969.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1969
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 70-789 I 3
To
My Mother and Father
'It is a fascinating study in the psychology ofthe
scientific mind to note the curious fluctuations in
its interests from one decade to another . . . At
one time much work will be motivated by a
particular interest, then another topic comes to
the fore; later on another still. By the time that
the first topic is focused again it is necessary to
modify the treatment of it by the new dis
coveries made in other fields. This is what has
happened concerning the doctrine ofthe image.'
Downey, I929, p. 35
CONTENTS
Foreword ix
I DEFINING MENTAL IMAGERY 1
2 AFTER-IMAGERY 13
3 EIDETIC IMAGERY 29
4 MEMORY IMAGERY 43
5 IMAGINATION IMAGERY 93
6 CONCLUSIONS AND SPECULATIONS 127
Appendices 148
References 157
Name Index 171
Subject Index 176
Vll
FOREWORD
IT IS the purpose of this book to bring together in one place a
representative sam pIe of facts and hypotheses concerning the
phenomena of mental imagery. The time seems to be appro
priate for such an attempt, and it is hoped that it will serve as a
guide to research in this field until a more comprehensive
treatment becomes availabie.
The field covered under the heading of mental imagery is a
Iarge one and relevant material spans the entire history of
experimental psychology. In 1860 Gustav Fechner (1966) dis
cussed the topic in his book on the Elements of Psychophysics. In
1880, at the very beginning of research into the nature of
individual differences, Francis Galton carried out a statistical
investigation into the varieties of imagery reported by school
boys, artists, scientists and statesmen.
From the days of Wilhelm Wundt at Leipzig to the end of
Edward Bradford Titchener's time at Cornell University, the
image constituted a basic theoretical element in the psycho
logical system of the structuralists, but with the decline of
structuralism and the growth of behaviourism in the 1920'S,
mental imagery began to fade as a serious subject for investi
gation and completely disappeared as a theoretical construct.
Only a few intrepid characters like Emeritus Professor T. H.
Pear of Manchester University continued to talk and write
about imagery during the great eclipse (Pear, 1927, 1935,
1937; Kerr and Pear, 1931). From the Iate 1920'S till the Iate
1940's the attention of most academic psychologists in the
English speaking world was focused upon other problems,
notably upon theoretical issues in the field of learning.
However, from the early 1950'S until the present time
academic psychology has expanded its range of research enor
mously, and one of the areas which has shown an extra
ordinarily vigorous growth is that concerning cognitive
processes, of which the activity of imaging is one.
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FOREWORD
Many theoretical and practical problems have contributed
to this revival of interest, and in his article on 'Imagery: the
Return of the Ostracized' Robert Holt (1964) provides a vivid
account of their nature. In writing of the practical problems of
an ergonomie kind, he cites the examples of: 'Radar operators
who have to monitor a scope for long periods ; long-distance
truck drivers in night runs over turnpikes, but also victims of
"highway hypnosis"; jet pHots flying straight and level at high
altitudes; operators ofsnowcats and other such vehicles ofpolar
exploration, when surrounded by snow storms-all of these
persons have been troubled by the emergence into conscious
ness of vivid imagery, largely visual but often kinaesthetic or
auditory, which they may take momentarily for reality.'
In the situations just described the emergence of imagination
imagery is potentially dangerous, and an understanding of the
conditions of its occurrence is necessary if it is to be controlled
or eliminated. But like most other events, the spontaneous
emergence of imagination imagery has a positive as weIl as a
negative side. Imagination imagery has traditionally been
associated with acts of creation, particularly during the illumi
nation phase, and it seems reasonable to expect that a more
exact study of the part played by mental imagery, of all kinds,
in the processes of creation will increase our knowledge of this
highly valued activity and its products.
Practical problems of the kind outlined raise theoretical
issues, both within psychology and within allied disciplines like
neurophysiology. Within psychology, for example, there has
been an increase of interest in the place of mental imagery in
the general process of cognitive development (e.g. Werner and
Kaplan, 1963; Bruner, et al., 1966). Within neurophysiology
the reports of imagery that have accompanied stimulation of
points on the exposed temporal cortex of epileptic patients have
aroused considerable theoretical interest (Penfield and Roberts,
1959). What kind of brain mechanisms mediate the retention
and recovery of these strips of vivid quasi-sensory and affective
memories?
To get some perspective on the nature ofmental imagery and
the theoretical, practical and methodological problems that are
raised by its existence, a considerable range of literature has
been examined; but relevant research and discussion on mental
imagery have appeared in a wide variety oflanguages and in an
x
FOREWORD
even wider variety ofj ournals, so that the task of covering it all,
with even partial completeness, has been a difficult one. The
task is made more difficult by the long time span of more than
100 years and the absence of any systematic reviews of the
literature. The effect of these difficulties has been to bias the
selection of material in some known and some unknown ways.
Most of the literature cited has been published in English;
most often this has been the original language of publication
but sometimes it has been the result oftranslation. Writers who
have been primarily philosophical, psychopharmacological or
neuro-physiological in their interests are very poorly repre
sented, as are psychologists whose accounts have been mainly
anecdotal. In addition it will be noted that certain traditional
topics, such as the relation of mental imagery to literature or to
education, have been almost completely ignored.
What has been deliberately included has been as much
empirical material of a behavioural and experiential kind
(Richardson, 1965) as relates to the nature of imagery qua
imagery and as relates to the part played by imagery in such
other cognitive processes as perception, remembering and
thinking. In addition, a considerable amount of space has been
devoted to the consideration of methodological issues, especially
the difficult but crucial problem of finding objective neuro
logical, physiological or behavioural indices that parallel sub
jective reports of mental imagery or in so me other way provide
checks upon the accuracy or utility of such reports.
The first chapter of this book takes up the problem of
defining mental imagery so that all subclasses of imagery would
be encompassed. In the four chapters that follow, each major
subclass of imagery has been discussed in turn: after imagery
and related phenomena, eidetic imagery, memory imagery, and
lastly, imagination imagery. The final chapter attempts abrief
restatement concerning the two major phenomenal attributes
of mental imagery-vividness and controllability-and then
goes on to discuss some particular cognitive problems in which
the process of imaging is involved.
Acknowledgements are due to many colleagues and friends
in Australia and overseas who were kind enough to comment
on a first draft of this book. In particular I would like to thank:
A. J. Marshall, J. Ross and J. Lumsden from the University of
Western Australia; R. R. Brown from the Australian National
Xl