The generation and maintenance of visual mental images: evidence from image type and aging

Imagery is a multi-componential process involving different mental operations. This paper addresses whether separate processes underlie the generation, maintenance and transformation of mental images or whether these cognitive processes rely on the same mental functions. We also examine the influence of age on these mental operations for independence of components. In Experiment 1, younger (22 years) and older (69 years) adults generated and maintained general, specific, contextual and autobiographical visual mental images evoked in response to concrete nouns. The older adults had longer generation times, but there was no difference between the two groups on maintenance. Both groups had shortest generation and maintenance times for general images, whereas only the older adults took longest in generating autobiographical images. In Experiment 2, the total maintenance time and number of transformations for each type of image were compared in another group of younger and older adults. General images were less transformed and more subject to decay for both groups. The older people maintained the autobiographical mental images for longest compared to other image types. In conclusion, image generation, maintenance and transformation seem to be differently affected by type of image and aging, supporting a model of their cognitive segregation.     

Scrutinizing visual images: The role of gaze in mental imagery and memory

Gaze was monitored by use of an infrared remote eye-tracker during perception and imagery of geometric forms and figures of animals. Based on the idea that gaze prioritizes locations where features with high information content are visible, we hypothesized that eye fixations should focus on regions that contain one or more local features that are relevant for object recognition. Most importantly, we predicted that when observers looked at an empty screen and at the same time generated a detailed visual image of what they had previously seen, their gaze would probabilistically dwell within regions corresponding to the original positions of salient features or parts. Correlation analyses showed positive relations between gaze’s dwell time within locations visited during perception and those in which gaze dwelled during the imagery generation task. Moreover, the more faithful an observer’s gaze enactment, the more accurate was the observer’s memory, in a separate test, of the dimension or size in which the forms had been perceived. In another experiment, observers saw a series of pictures of animals and were requested to memorize them. They were then asked later, in a recall phase, to answer a question about a property of one of the encoded forms; it was found that, when retrieving from long-term memory a previously seen picture, gaze returned to the location of the part probed by the question. In another experimental condition, the observers were asked to maintain fixation away from the original location of the shape while thinking about the answer, so as to interfere with the gaze enactment process; such a manipulation resulted in measurable costs in the quality of memory. We conclude that the generation of mental images relies upon a process of enactment of gaze that can be beneficial to visual memory.     

Closure of autobiographical memories: The effects of written recounting from first- or third-person visual perspective

Autobiographical memories are recalled with varying degrees of psychological closure. Closure is a subjective assessment of how far a remembered experience feels resolved, and it has been suggested that one predictor of closure is the amount of emotional detail in the memory. Study 1 examined which aspect of emotional detail is important for closure, and showed that open and closed negative memories were distinguished by ratings of emotion evoked during recall, not by remembered emotion from the time of the event. The recall of open memories was accompanied by more intense, more negative, and less positive emotion than the recall of closed memories. Biased retelling of memories has been shown to influence closure and on the basis of evidence that third-person recall serves a distancing function, Study 2 examined whether instructions to repeatedly recount an open memory from a third-person perspective would increase closure compared with a single or repeated recounting from a first-person perspective. While repeated third-person recounting had the greatest influence on closure, there were also increases in the first-person recounting groups. The results suggest that closure can be increased by reporting memories in written narrative form, particularly if repeatedly expressed from the third-person perspective.     

Closure of autobiographical memories: The effects of written recounting from first- or third-person visual perspective

Autobiographical memories are recalled with varying degrees of psychological closure. Closure is a subjective assessment of how far a remembered experience feels resolved, and it has been suggested that one predictor of closure is the amount of emotional detail in the memory. Study 1 examined which aspect of emotional detail is important for closure, and showed that open and closed negative memories were distinguished by ratings of emotion evoked during recall, not by remembered emotion from the time of the event. The recall of open memories was accompanied by more intense, more negative, and less positive emotion than the recall of closed memories. Biased retelling of memories has been shown to influence closure and on the basis of evidence that third-person recall serves a distancing function, Study 2 examined whether instructions to repeatedly recount an open memory from a third-person perspective would increase closure compared with a single or repeated recounting from a first-person perspective. While repeated third-person recounting had the greatest influence on closure, there were also increases in the first-person recounting groups. The results suggest that closure can be increased by reporting memories in written narrative form, particularly if repeatedly expressed from the third-person perspective.     

The impact of the health professional on the individual's experience of cancer: A psychodynamic perspective

Abstract

This paper examines how interactions with health professionals may come to influence the patient's experience of cancer. It considers the idea that the experience of cancer returns an individual to a state of dependence and lack of integration similar to that of the young infant. The subsequent interactions with health professionals can then be considered in light of its ability to hold the patient's un-integrated self and facilitate its re-integration.     

Structural properties of spatial representations in blind people: Scanning images constructed from haptic exploration or from locomotion in a 3-D audio virtual environment

When people scan mental images, their response times increase linearly with increases in the distance to be scanned, which is generally taken as reflecting the fact that their internal representations incorporate the metric properties of the corresponding objects. In view of this finding, we investigated the structural properties of spatial mental images created from nonvisual sources in three groups (blindfolded sighted, late blind, and congenitally blind). In Experiment 1, blindfolded sighted and late blind participants created metrically accurate spatial representations of a small-scale spatial configuration under both verbal and haptic learning conditions. In Experiment 2, late and congenitally blind participants generated accurate spatial mental images after both verbal and locomotor learning of a full-scale navigable space (created by an immersive audio virtual reality system), whereas blindfolded sighted participants were selectively impaired in their ability to generate precise spatial representations from locomotor experience. These results attest that in the context of a permanent lack of sight, encoding spatial information on the basis of the most reliable currently functional system (the sensorimotor system) is crucial for building a metrically accurate representation of a spatial environment. The results also highlight the potential of spatialized audio-rendering technology for exploring the spatial representations of visually impaired participants.     

Hebb repetition effects in visual memory: The roles of verbal rehearsal and distinctiveness

A version of the Hebb repetition task was used with faces to explore the generality of the effect in a nonverbal domain. In the baseline condition, a series of upright faces was presented, and participants were asked to reconstruct the original order. Performance in this condition was compared to another in which the same stimuli were accompanied by concurrent verbal rehearsal to examine whether Hebb learning is dependent on verbal processing. Baseline performance was also compared to a condition in which the same faces were presented inverted. This comparison was used to determine the importance in Hebb learning of being able to visually distinguish between the list items. The results produced classic serial position curves that were equivalent over conditions with Hebb repetition effects being in evidence only for upright faces and verbal suppression as having no effect. These findings are interpreted as posing a challenge to current models derived from verbal-domain data.     

The impact of verbal and physical abuse on distress,mental health,and intentions to quit in sports officials

Sports officials (e.g., referees, umpires, judges) can experience distress from a multitude of sources, including episodes of verbal and physical abuse from spectators, coaches, and athletes. Little is known about the impact of this abuse on mental health (MH) outcomes and intentions to quit, however. As such, the primary aims of this study were to survey the prevalence and frequency of abuse in sports officials and to examine relationships between abuse, distress, and subsequent MH and intentions to quit outcomes. Survey data were collected from 438 Gaelic Games match officials. Of these, 94.29% and 23.06% had experienced verbal and physical abuse respectively during their career. Verbal abuse was mostly experienced a couple of times a season (reported by 43.83% of officials) or every couple of games (31.48%), whereas physical abuse was predominantly experienced once or twice in a career (85.15%). Structural equation modelling was used to assess three alternative models that proposed the relationship between experiences of abuse, and MH and intentions to quit outcomes to be either 1) direct, 2) indirect, fully mediated by distress, or 3) both direct and indirect, partially mediated by distress. For verbal abuse, only the direct and indirect effects model achieved acceptable fit and significantly explained variance in mental wellbeing (9.4%), anxiety (15.2%), depression (15.6%), and intentions to quit (19.1%). For physical abuse, though higher distress was associated with poorer MH and greater intentions to quit, none of the models fully explained the relationships between all variables. These findings demonstrate, for the first time, relationships between abuse, subsequent distress, and MH outcomes. We highlight the urgent need to develop evidence-based psychological interventions to tackle abuse, manage conflict, and support the MH needs of sports officials.     

Demon or disorder: A survey of attitudes toward mental illness in the Christian church

The present study assessed the attitudes and beliefs that mentally ill Christians encountered when they seek counsel from the church. Participants (n?=?293) completed an anonymous online survey in relation to their interactions with the church. Analysis of the results found that while a majority of the mentally ill participants were accepted by the church, approximately 30% reported a negative interaction. Negative interactions included abandonment by the church, equating mental illness with the work of demons, and suggesting that the mental disorder was the result of personal sin. Analysis of the data by gender found that women were significantly more likely than men to have their mental illness dismissed by the church and/or be told not to take psychiatric medication. Given that a religious support system can play a vital role in recovery from serious mental disorders, these results suggest that continued education is needed to bring the Christian and mental health communities together.     

The experience of force: the role of haptic experience of forces in visual perception of object motion and interactions, mental simulation, and motion-related judgments

Forces are experienced in actions on objects. The mechanoreceptor system is stimulated by proximal forces in interactions with objects, and experiences of force occur in a context of information yielded by other sensory modalities, principally vision. These experiences are registered and stored as episodic traces in the brain. These stored representations are involved in generating visual impressions of forces and causality in object motion and interactions. Kinematic information provided by vision is matched to kinematic features of stored representations, and the information about forces and causality in those representations then forms part of the perceptual interpretation. I apply this account to the perception of interactions between objects and to motions of objects that do not have perceived external causes, in which motion tends to be perceptually interpreted as biological or internally caused. I also apply it to internal simulations of events involving mental imagery, such as mental rotation, trajectory extrapolation and judgment, visual memory for the location of moving objects, and the learning of perceptual judgments and motor skills. Simulations support more accurate judgments when they represent the underlying dynamics of the event simulated. Mechanoreception gives us whatever limited ability we have to perceive interactions and object motions in terms of forces and resistances; it supports our practical interventions on objects by enabling us to generate simulations that are guided by inferences about forces and resistances, and it helps us learn novel, visually based judgments about object behavior.