Squinting with the mind's eye : Effects of stimulus resolution on imaginal and perceptual comparisons

Subjects either viewed or visualized arrays that were divided into four quadrants, with each quadrant containing a set of stripes. In two experiments, one array contained only relatively narrow (high-resolution) stripes, and one contained only relatively thick (low-resolution) stripes. The subjects...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Memory & cognition 1999-03, Vol.27 (2), p.276-287
Main Authors: KOSSLYN, S. M, SUKEL, K. E, BLY, B. M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Arrays
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition & reasoning
Cognition. Intelligence
Eidetic Imagery - physiology
Eyes & eyesight
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Male
Mental imagery. Mental representation
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reaction Time
Sensory perception
Space life sciences
Visual Perception - physiology
Visualization
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Subjects either viewed or visualized arrays that were divided into four quadrants, with each quadrant containing a set of stripes. In two experiments, one array contained only relatively narrow (high-resolution) stripes, and one contained only relatively thick (low-resolution) stripes. The subjects compared sets of stripes in different quadrants according to their length, spacing, orientation, or width. When the subjects visualized the arrays, they required much more time to compare high-resolution patterns than low-resolution patterns; when the subjects saw the arrays, they evaluated both types of arrays equally easily. In addition, the results from the third experiment provide strong evidence that people use imagery in this task; in one condition, the subjects evaluated oblique sets of stripes, and in another condition, they evaluated vertical and horizontal stripes. In both imagery and perception, the subjects made more errors when evaluating oblique stimuli; in imagery, they also required more time to evaluate oblique stimuli. The results suggest that additional effort is required in imagery to represent visual patterns with high resolution. This finding demonstrates that, although imagery and perception may activate common brain regions, it is more difficult to represent high-resolution information in imagery than in perception.
ISSN:0090-502X
1532-5946
DOI:10.3758/BF03211412