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Converging operations and reported mediators in the investigation of mental imagery
Author(s) -
Richardson John T. E.
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1985.tb01944.x
Subject(s) - concreteness , psychology , mental image , cognitive psychology , recall , cognition , construct (python library) , developmental psychology , neuroscience , computer science , programming language
The role of mental imagery in human cognition and memory has been studied by means of a variety of experimental procedures. However, it is frequently not possible to make unambiguous predictions concerning the interactions among these procedures, and it is thus unclear whether they can be said to ‘converge’ upon a single theoretical construct. This problem can be resolved by means of the systematic collection of subjects' reports, which provide a crucial additional source of evidence on the availability and efficacy of imaginal mediators in cognitive tasks. Two experiments studied mediator reports in paired‐associate learning, and it was concluded: that imagery instructions enhance the availability of imaginal mediators rather than their efficacy; that stimulus concreteness enhances both the availability and the efficacy of such mediators; that mental imagery is not an effective mediating device in the case of abstract material; that imagery instructions enhance the availability of imaginal mediators in the case of both concrete and abstract material; but that such instructions may depress the recall of items which fail to produce imaginal mediators.