Motor processes in mental rotation

Much indirect evidence supports the hypothesis that transformations of mental images are at least in part guided by motor processes, even in the case of images of abstract objects rather than of body parts. For example, rotation may be guided by processes that also prime one to see results of a specific motor action. We directly test the hypothesis by means of a dual-task paradigm in which subjects perform the Cooper-Shepard mental rotation task while executing an unseen motor rotation in a given direction and at a previously learned speed. Four results support the inference that mental rotation relies on motor processes. First, motor rotation that is compatible with mental rotation results in faster times and fewer errors in the imagery task than when the two rotations are incompatible. Second, the angle through which subjects rotate their mental images, and the angle through which they rotate a joystick handle are correlated, but only if the directions of the two rotations are compatible. Third, motor rotation modifies the classical inverted V-shaped mental rotation response time function, favoring the direction of the motor rotation; indeed, in some cases motor rotation even shifts the location of the minimum of this curve in the direction of the motor rotation. Fourth, the preceding effect is sensitive not only to the direction of the motor rotation, but also to the motor speed. A change in the speed of motor rotation can correspondingly slow down or speed up the mental rotation

Is Cognitive Neuropsychology Plausible? The Perils of Sitting on a One-Legged Stool

We distinguish between strong and weak cognitive neuropsychology, with the former attempting to provide direct insights into the nature of information processing and the latter having the more modest goal of providing constraints on such theories. We argue that strong cognitive neuropsychology, although possible, is unlikely to succeed and that researchers will fare better by combining behavioral, computational, and neural investigations. Arguments offered by Caramazza (1992) in defense of strong neuropsychology are analyzed, and examples are offered to illustrate the power of alternative points of view.Psycholog

Implicit Transfer of Motor sSrategies in Mental Rotation

Recent research indicates that motor areas are activated in some types of mental rotation. Many of these studies have required participants to perform egocentric transformations of body parts or whole bodies; however, motor activation also has been found with nonbody objects when participants explicitly relate the objects to their hands. The current study used positron emission tomography (PET) to examine whether such egocentric motor strategies can be transferred implicitly from one type of mental rotation to another. Two groups of participants were tested. In the Hand-Object group, participants performed imaginal rotations of pictures of hands; following this, they then made similar judgments of pictures of Shepard-Metzler objects. The Object-Object group performed the rotation task for two sets of Shepard-Metzler objects only. When the second condition in each group (which always required rotating Shepard-Metzler objects) was compared, motor areas (Area 6 and M1) were found to be activated only in the Hand-Object group. These findings suggest that motor strategies can be covertly transferred to imaginal transformations of nonbody objects. © 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved

Merleau-Ponty and neuroaesthetics: Two approaches to performance and technology

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Digital Creativity, 23(3-4), 225 - 238, 2012. Copyright @ 2012 Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14626268.2012.709941.Assisted by the rapid growth of digital technology, which has enhanced its ambitions, performance is an increasingly popular area of artistic practice. This article seeks to contextualise this within two methodologically divergent yet complimentary intellectual tendencies. The first is the work of the philosopher Merleau-Ponty, who recognised that our experience of the world has an inescapably ‘embodied’ quality, not reducible to mental accounts, which can be vicariously extended through specific instrumentation. The second is the developing field of neuroaesthetics; that is, neurological research directed towards the analysis, in brain-functional terms, of our experiences of objects and events which are culturally deemed to be of artistic significance. I will argue that both these contexts offer promising approaches to interpreting developments in contemporary performance, which has achieved critical recognition without much antecedent theoretical support

Performance on Middle School Geometry Problems with Geometry Clues Matched to Three Different Cognitive Styles

This study investigated the relationship between 3 ability-based cognitive styles (verbal deductive, spatial imagery, and object imagery) and performance on geometry problems that provided different types of clues. The purpose was to determine whether students with a specific cognitive style outperformed other students, when the geometry problems provided clues compatible with their cognitive style. Students were identified as having a particular cognitive style when they scored equal to or above the median on the measure assessing this ability. A geometry test was developed in which each problem could be solved on the basis of verbal reasoning clues (matching verbal deductive cognitive style), mental rotation clues (matching spatial imagery cognitive style), or shape memory clues (matching object imagery cognitive style). Straightforward cognitive style–clue-compatibility relationships were not supported. Instead, for the geometry problems with either mental rotation or shape memory clues, students with a combination of both verbal and spatial cognitive styles tended to do the best. For the problems with verbal reasoning clues, students with either a verbal or a spatial cognitive style did well, with each cognitive style contributing separately to success. Thus, both spatial imagery and verbal deductive cognitive styles were important for solving geometry problems, whereas object imagery was not. For girls, a spatial imagery cognitive style was advantageous for geometry problem solving, regardless of type of clues provided.Psycholog

Bridging psychology and biology - the analysis of individuals in groups

Biological systems are particularly prone to variation, and the authors argue that such variation must be regarded as important data in its own right. The authors describe a method in which individual differences are studied within the framework of a general theory of the population as a whole and illustrate how this method can be used to address three types of issues: the nature of the mechanisms that give rise to a specific ability, such as mental imagery; the role of psychological or biological mediators of environmental challenges, such as the biological bases for differences in dispositional mood; and the existence of processes that have nonadditive effects with behavioral and physiological variables, such as factors that modulate the response to stress and its effects on the immune response. Variation occurs around every central tendency, bu

Vivid visual mental imagery in the absence of the primary visual cortex

The role of the primary visual cortex in visual mental imagery has provided significant debate in the imagery literature. Functional neuroimaging studies show considerable variation depending on task and technique. Patient studies can be difficult to interpret due to the diverse nature of cortical damage. The type of cortical damage in patient SBR is exceedingly rare as it is restricted to the gray matter of the calcarine sulcus. In this study, we show that in spite of his near-complete cortical blindness, SBR exhibits vivid visual mental imagery both behaviorally and when measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging. The pattern of cortical activation to visual mental imagery in SBR is indistinguishable from individual sighted subjects, in contrast to the visual perceptual responses, which are greatly attenuated