scholarly journals Implicit Bias as Mental Imagery

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
BENCE NANAY
Keyword(s):  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Sensory Input ◽  
Propositional Attitude ◽  
Implicit Bias ◽  
Perceptual Processing

Abstract What is the mental representation that is responsible for implicit bias? What is this representation that mediates between the trigger and the biased behavior? My claim is that this representation is neither a propositional attitude nor a mere association (as the two major accounts of implicit bias claim). Rather, it is mental imagery: perceptual processing that is not directly triggered by sensory input. I argue that this view captures the advantages of the two standard accounts without inheriting their disadvantages. Further, this view also explains why manipulating mental imagery is among the most efficient ways of counteracting implicit bias.

scholarly journals The Use of Kinetic Imagery by Children and Adults

1984 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-20
Author(s):  
Linda J. Anooshian ◽  
Katryn Wilson ◽  
Alice A. D'Acosta
Keyword(s):  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Developmental Changes ◽  
Horizontal Movement ◽  
Performance Levels ◽  
Task Administration ◽  
Better Than

In this study, we examined developmental improvement in kinetic imagery skills as related to differences in the utilizability vs. evocability of those skills. Analyses were conducted on performance levels and response times for task trials in which participants were required to determine which of 3 larger blocks could be "made" by combining (through imagery) 2 smaller blocks. Adults performed better than did 9- or 11-year-olds, especially for trials that required mental representation of rotation as well as horizontal movement. Examination of the effects of 2 conditions of task administration indicated no developmental changes in the adjustment of methods of task solution to specific instructions. However, analyses of response times suggested that age differences in performance levels could be attributed to differences in the degree to which possibilities of ways in which blocks could be combined through mental imagery were exhaustively examined.

Difficult Turned Easy: Suggestion Renders a Challenging Visual Task Simple

2020 ◽  
pp. 095679762095485
Author(s):  
Mathieu Landry ◽  
Jason Da Silva Castanheira ◽  
Jérôme Sackur ◽  
Amir Raz
Keyword(s):  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Sensory Input ◽  
Moving Objects ◽  
Visual Stimuli ◽  
Perceptual Information ◽  
Hypnotic Suggestion ◽  
Adult Participants ◽  
The Brain

Suggestions can cause some individuals to miss or disregard existing visual stimuli, but can they infuse sensory input with nonexistent information? Although several prominent theories of hypnotic suggestion propose that mental imagery can change our perceptual experience, data to support this stance remain sparse. The present study addressed this lacuna, showing how suggesting the presence of physically absent, yet critical, visual information transforms an otherwise difficult task into an easy one. Here, we show how adult participants who are highly susceptible to hypnotic suggestion successfully hallucinated visual occluders on top of moving objects. Our findings support the idea that, at least in some people, suggestions can add perceptual information to sensory input. This observation adds meaningful weight to theoretical, clinical, and applied aspects of the brain and psychological sciences.

scholarly journals The Stoic Appeal to Expertise: Platonic Echoes in the Reply to Indistinguishability

Apeiron ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Shogry
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representation ◽  
Sensory Input ◽  
General Account ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Mind

Abstract One Stoic response to the skeptical indistinguishability argument is that it fails to account for expertise: the Stoics allow that while two similar objects create indistinguishable appearances in the amateur, this is not true of the expert, whose appearances succeed in discriminating the pair. This paper re-examines the motivations for this Stoic response, and argues that it reveals the Stoic claim that, in generating a kataleptic appearance, the perceiver’s mind is active, insofar as it applies concepts matching the perceptual stimulus. I argue that this claim is reflected in the Stoic definition of the kataleptic appearance, and that it respects their more general account of mental representation. I further suggest that, in attributing some activity to the mind in creating each kataleptic appearance, and in claiming that the expert’s mind allows her to form more kataleptic appearances than the amateur, the Stoics draw inspiration from the wax tablet model in Plato’s Theaetetus (190e–196d), where Socrates distinguishes the wise from the ignorant on the basis of how well they match sensory input with its appropriate mental ‘seal’ (σφραγίς).

Multimodal Mental Imagery and Perceptual Justification

2020 ◽  
pp. 77-98
Author(s):  
Bence Nanay
Keyword(s):  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Sensory Stimulation ◽  
Amodal Completion ◽  
Perceptual Processing ◽  
Perceptual State ◽  
Narrow Sense ◽  
Perceptual Justification ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Cognitive Penetrability ◽  
Sense Modality

There has been a lot of discussion about how the cognitive penetrability of perception may or may not have important implications for understanding perceptual justification. The aim of this chapter is to argue that a different set of findings in perceptual psychology poses an even more serious challenge to the very idea of perceptual justification. These findings are about the importance of perceptual processing that is not driven by corresponding sensory stimulation in the relevant sense modality (such as amodal completion and multimodal completion). These findings show that everyday perception is in fact a mixture of sensory-stimulation-driven perceptual processing and perceptual processing that is not driven by corresponding sensory stimulation in the relevant sense modality and that we have strong reasons to doubt the epistemic pedigree of the latter process. The implication of this is not that we should become skeptics or deny the possibility of perceptual justification. It is, rather, that the only way in which we can understand when and whether a perceptual state justifies beliefs is by paying close attention to empirical facts about the reliability of perceptual processing that is not driven by corresponding sensory stimulation in the relevant sense modality. In this sense (a very narrow sense) epistemology needs to be naturalized.

Exploring synaesthetes’ mental imagery abilities across multiple sensory modalities

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (0) ◽  
pp. 219
Author(s):  
Mary Jane Spiller
Keyword(s):  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Visual Imagery ◽  
Perceptual Processing ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Questionnaire Study ◽  
Imagery Ability ◽  
Spatial Imagery ◽  
Everyday Activities ◽  
Sensory Modalities

Previous research on the mental imagery abilities of synaesthetes has concentrated on visual and spatial imagery in synaesthetes with spatial forms (Price, 2009, 2010; Simner et al., 2008) and letter-colour synaesthesia (Spiller and Jansari, 2008). Though Barnett and Newell (2008) asked synaesthetes of all types to fill out a questionnaire on visual imagery, most of their synaesthetes reported some form of linguistic–colour synaesthesia. We extend the investigation of mental imagery to a wider variety of synaesthesia types and a wider variety of sensory modalities using a questionnaire study and several tests of visual and auditory mental imagery ability. Our results indicate that, as a group, synaesthetes report making greater use of mental imagery than non-synaesthetes, in everyday activities. Furthermore, they self-report greater vividness of visual, auditory, tactile, and taste imagery than do non-synaesthetes. However, as a group the synaesthetes are not seen to do significantly better at the mental imagery tasks, in either the visual or auditory modalities. These results have important implications for our understanding of synaesthesia, in relation to potential fundamental differences in perceptual processing of synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes.

The power of imagination — How anticipatory mental imagery alters perceptual processing of fearful facial expressions

NeuroImage ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 1703-1714 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther K. Diekhof ◽  
Hanne E. Kipshagen ◽  
Peter Falkai ◽  
Peter Dechent ◽  
Jürgen Baudewig ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Perceptual Processing

scholarly journals The Decoupled Mind: Mind-wandering Disrupts Cortical Phase-locking to Perceptual Events

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (11) ◽  
pp. 2596-2607 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Baird ◽  
Jonathan Smallwood ◽  
Antoine Lutz ◽  
Jonathan W. Schooler
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Input ◽  
Phase Locking ◽  
Mind Wandering ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Perceptual Processing ◽  
Neural Processing ◽  
Stream Of Consciousness ◽  
Time Frequency ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

The mind flows in a “stream of consciousness,” which often neglects immediate sensory input in favor of focusing on intrinsic, self-generated thoughts or images. Although considerable research has documented the disruptive influences of task-unrelated thought for perceptual processing and task performance, the brain dynamics associated with these phenomena are not well understood. Here we investigate the possibility, suggested by several convergent lines of research, that task-unrelated thought is associated with a reduction in the trial-to-trial phase consistency of the oscillatory neural signal in response to perceptual input. Using an experience sampling paradigm coupled with continuous high-density electroencephalography, we observed that task-unrelated thought was associated with a reduction of the P1 ERP, replicating prior observations that mind-wandering is accompanied by a reduction of the brain-evoked response to sensory input. Time–frequency analysis of the oscillatory neural response revealed a decrease in theta-band cortical phase-locking, which peaked over parietal scalp regions. Furthermore, we observed that task-unrelated thought impacted the oscillatory mode of the brain during the initiation of a task-relevant action, such that more cortical processing was required to meet task demands. Together, these findings document that the attenuation of perceptual processing that occurs during task-unrelated thought is associated with a reduction in the temporal fidelity with which the brain responds to a stimulus and suggest that increased neural processing may be required to recouple attention to a task. More generally, these data provide novel confirmatory evidence for the mechanisms through which attentional states facilitate the neural processing of sensory input.

scholarly journals Corollary Discharge versus Efference Copy: Distinct Neural Signals in Speech Preparation Differentially Modulate Auditory Responses

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siqi Li ◽  
Hao Zhu ◽  
Xing Tian
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Processing ◽  
Sensory Input ◽  
Efference Copy ◽  
Corollary Discharge ◽  
Perceptual Processing ◽  
Neural Signals ◽  
Inhibitory Function ◽  
Auditory Responses ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Motor Signals

AbstractActions influence sensory processing in a complex way to shape behavior. For example, during actions, a copy of motor signals—termed corollary discharge (CD) or efference copy (EC)—can be transmitted to sensory regions and modulate perception. However, the sole inhibitory function of the motor copies is challenged by mixed empirical observations as well as multifaceted computational demands for behaviors. We hypothesized that the content in the motor signals available at distinct stages of actions determined the nature of signals (CD vs. EC) and constrained their modulatory functions on perceptual processing. We tested this hypothesis using speech in which we could precisely control and quantify the course of action. In three electroencephalography (EEG) experiments using a novel delayed articulation paradigm, we found that preparation without linguistic contents suppressed auditory responses to all speech sounds, whereas preparing to speak a syllable selectively enhanced the auditory responses to the prepared syllable. A computational model demonstrated that a bifurcation of motor signals could be a potential algorithm and neural implementation to achieve the distinct functions in the motor-to-sensory transformation. These results suggest that distinct motor signals are generated in the motor-to-sensory transformation and integrated with sensory input to modulate perception.

scholarly journals Verbal vs. visual coding in modified mental imagery map exploration task

Psihologija ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivana Cirovic ◽  
Suncica Zdravkovic
Keyword(s):  
Word Frequency ◽  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Distance Effect ◽  
Visual Modality ◽  
Lexical Frequency ◽  
Visual Coding ◽  
Symbolic Distance ◽  
Exploration Task

We modified classical mental exploration task introducing verbal modality. Consequently, we could test robust effects from lexical processing in an attempt to understand whether the underlying mental representation is strictly propositional. In our three experiments, in addition to map modality (visual or verbal), lexical frequency, concreteness and visual frequency were also varied. The symbolic distance effect was replicated, regardless of map modality. Exploration of distances was regularly faster on pictorial maps. Effects of lexical frequency and concreteness were not significant for verbal maps. However, when visual frequency was introduced on pictorial maps both type of frequencies generated measurable effects. Our findings directly contradict the assumptions of propositional theories (1) subjects were faster in the visual modality, which would be difficult to explain if the perceptual code had to be transformed into propositional, (2) word frequency and concreteness did not contribute as would be expected if propositional code were a default.

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