Mental Imagery
25 important questions on Mental Imagery
What is mental imagery?
Internal representation that creates the experience of sense-perception in the absence of appropriate sensory input
What is mental practice?
Using imagery to rehearse performance without executing any actions
What can mental imagery be used for?
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What is the difference between mental imagery and mental practice?
What did Cumming & Hall (2002) study?
Elite athletes quality of mental imagery is better
Who found that athletes used different types of imagery between training and competition?
Training = more cognitive components of imagery e.g. planning
Competition = imagery focused on motivation and management of arousal
What kind of mental imagery component would be useful in training?
-> planning, skill rehearsal
What kind of mental imagery component would be useful in a competition?
- management of arousal
When is the use of imagery highest? Who found this?
Imagery use highest in pre-competition, (e.g. Hall et al., 1990)
Who argued that imagery may be important for goal-setting?
Munroe et al., (1999) -> imagery can help athletes stay focused on their goal
Who found that imagery increases self-efficacy?
How does negative mental imagery affect performance? Who found this?
•Woolfolk et al. (1985)
–Compared college students on a putting task
–Positive (ball into hole)
–Negative (ball just misses)
–Control
–Positive imagery (i.e. imagine your best put) = 20% improvement
–Negative imagery (i.e. imagine a bad put) = 21% drop in performance (relative to controls)
= The relative difference is 40% change in performance (the difference between 20 and -20) -> shows that constantly rehearsing things that went wrong has a negative impact on performance -> Rumination is maladaptive
Which mental imagery theory dominates sports psychology?
What is the neuromuscular account? Who was it proposed by?
Jacobsen (1931)
Mental imagery induces sub threshold activation of the muscles = means when you imagine doing a task, you send signals to muscles (activating muscles) BUT the signals are too weak to make observable movement but there are some small improvements in strength and coordination
Very widely believed for a long time but recent evidence has rejected the theory
Which theory did Slade et al. (2002) reject? What did they find?
EMG activity doesn’t match in real performance and imagery i.e. no correlation between EEG activity in mental practice and the actual muscular activity when you did the task = solid convincing evidence against Neuromuscular theories
What is the Symbolic Learning Theory?
-> schemas represented the action required to achieve a particular goal
-> mental practice helps to encode and process task-related information
-> mental practice activates schemas which strengthens associations between schemas = allows for faster execution of the action
What is a limitation of the Symbolic Learning Theory?
- Mental practice doesn't only affect skill tasks (1992)
What is the Bioinformational Theory? Who was it proposed by?
•Mental imagery uses propositions
–Language like codes which represent different aspects of stimuli
–‘Images’ are epiphenomenal
•3 types of proposition
–Stimulus propositions: define the content of the scene
–Response propositions: define how the observer will act and feel in response to this scene
–Meaning propositions: perceived importance of the image i.e. how to respond emotionally to the scene
•Imagery works by modulating response propositions (you can modulate a proposition independently of the others)
What is functional equivalence theory?
-> argues that the sensory parts of the brain are critical in the imagery process
What did Kosslyn et al. (1991)? Which theory does this support?
- this demonstrates a causal relationship between the visual system and imagery
--> supports Functional Equivalence theory
What did Englehard et al. (2010) find? Which theory does this support?
Making eye-movements reduces intensity of visual imagery
-> demonstrates that the systems/processes used for perception is similar to machinery for mental imagery
--> supports Functional Equivalence theory
What is evidence against Functional Equivalence?
e.g. patient DF (Servos & Goodale, 1995)
-> as a visual perception deficit but her imagery abilities seem to be intact
What did Bartolomeo (2002) find?
= double dissociations between imagery and visual problems
-> argues against the Functional Equivalence theory
What did Lotze et al. (1999) study?
Method: compared real and imagined movements with fMRI (n =10)
Results: Imagery and physical execution activated similar motor structures
Conclusion: There is an overlap between the parts of the brain that are activated by motor and imagining movements
What are the 4 different theories that propose how mental imagery works?
•Neuromuscular account (Jacobsen 1931)
–MP activates muscles used in imagined activity
•Cognitive or Symbolic account
–MP helps information processing
•Bio-informational theory (Lang 1977;1979)
•Functional Equivalence (Kosslyn 1980, Jeannerod 1995, Decety 1996)
–Imagery activates the same neural systems used by perception and motor control
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