Mental image

"Mental images" redirects here. For the computer graphics software company, seeMental Images.

"Mind's eye" redirects here. For other uses, seeMind's eye (disambiguation).

In thephilosophy of mind,neuroscience,andcognitive science,amental imageis an experience that, on most occasions, significantly resembles the experience of "perceiving" some object, event, or scene but occurs when the relevant object, event, or scene is not actually present to the senses.There are sometimes episodes, particularly on falling asleep (hypnagogic imagery) and waking up (hypnopompic imagery), when the mental imagery may be dynamic, phantasmagoric, and involuntary in character, repeatedly presenting identifiable objects or actions, spilling over from waking events, or defying perception, presenting a kaleidoscopic field, in which no distinct object can be discerned.Mental imagery can sometimes produce the same effects as would be produced by the behavior or experience imagined.

The nature of these experiences, what makes them possible, and their function (if any) have long been subjects of research and controversy inphilosophy,psychology,cognitive science,and, more recently,neuroscience.As contemporary researchers use the expression, mental images orimagerycan comprise information from any source of sensory input; one may experienceauditory images,olfactory images,and so forth. However, the majority of philosophical and scientific investigations of the topic focus onvisualmental imagery. It has sometimes been assumed that, like humans, some types of animals are capable of experiencing mental images.Due to the fundamentally introspective (reflective) nature of the phenomenon, it has been difficult to assess whether or not non-human animals experience mental imagery.

Philosophers such asGeorge BerkeleyandDavid Hume,and early experimental psychologists such asWilhelm WundtandWilliam James,understoodideasin general to be mental images. Today, it is very widely believed that much imagery functions as mental representations (ormental models), playing an important role in memory and thinking.William Brant (2013, p. 12) traces the scientific use of the phrase "mental images" back toJohn Tyndall's 1870 speech called the "Scientific Use of the Imagination". Some have suggested that images are best understood to be, by definition, a form of inner, mental, or neural representation.Others reject the view that the image experience may be identical with (or directly caused by) any such representation in the mind or the brain,but do not take account of the non-representational forms of imagery.

Mind's eye

The notion of a "mind's eye" goes back at least toCicero's reference tomentis oculiduring his discussion of the orator's appropriate use ofsimile.

In this discussion, Cicero observed that allusions to "theSyrtisof his patrimony "and" theCharybdisof his possessions "involved similes that were" too far-fetched "; and he advised the orator to, instead, just speak of" the rock "and" the gulf "(respectively)—on the grounds that" the eyes of the mind are more easily directed to those objects which we have seen, than to those which we have only heard ".

The concept of "the mind's eye" first appeared in English inChaucer's(c. 1387)Man of Law's Talein hisCanterbury Tales,where he tells us that one of the three men dwelling in a castle was blind, and could only see with "the eyes of his mind"; namely, those eyes "with which all men see after they have become blind".

Physical basis

The biological foundation of mental imagery is not fully understood. Studies usingfMRIhave shown that thelateral geniculate nucleusand theV1 areaof thevisual cortexare activated during mental imagery tasks.Rateywrites:

Thevisual pathwayis not a one-way street. Higher areas of thebraincan also send visual input back toneuronsin lower areas of the visual cortex. [...] As humans, we have the ability to see with the mind's eye—to have a perceptual experience in the absence of visual input. For example,PET scanshave shown that when subjects, seated in a room, imagine they are at their front door starting to walk either to the left or right, activation begins in thevisual association cortex,theparietal cortex,and theprefrontal cortex—all highercognitive processing centersof the brain.

A biological basis for mental imagery is found in the deeper portions of the brain below theneocortex.In a large study with 285 participants, Tabi, Maio, Attaallah, et al. (2022) investigated the association between an established measure of visual mental imagery,Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire(VVIQ) scores, and volumes of brain structures including thehippocampus,amygdala,primary motor cortex,primary visual cortexand thefusiform gyrus.Tabi et al. (2022) found significant positive correlations between visual imagery vividness and the volumes of the hippocampus and primary visual cortex.

VVIQ correlations with Hippocampal CA & GC-ML-DG volumes

Significant positive correlations were also obtained between VVIQ scores and hippocampal structures including Bilateral CA1, CA3, CA4 and Granule Cell (GC) and Molecular Layer (ML) of the Dentate Gyrus (DG). Follow-up analysis revealed that visual imagery was in particular correlated with the four subfields presented in the above illustration (Tabi et al., 2022).

Thethalamushas been found to be discrete to other components in that it processes all forms of perceptional data relayed from both lower and higher components of the brain. Damage to this component can produce permanent perceptual damage, however when damage is inflicted upon thecerebral cortex,the brain adapts toneuroplasticityto amend any occlusions for perception.It can be thought that the neocortex is a sophisticated memory storage warehouse in which data received as an input from sensory systems are compartmentalized via the cerebral cortex. This would essentially allow for shapes to be identified, although given the lack of filtering input produced internally, one may as a consequence, hallucinate—essentially seeing something that isn't received as an input externally but rather internal (i.e. an error in the filtering of segmented sensory data from the cerebral cortex may result in one seeing, feeling, hearing or experiencing something that is inconsistent with reality).

Not all people have the same mental imagery ability. For many, when the eyes are closed, the perception of darkness prevails. However, some people are able to perceive colorful, dynamic imagery (McKellar, 1957). The use ofhallucinogenicdrugs increases the subject's ability to consciously access mental imagery including synaestesia (McKellar, 1957).

Furthermore, thepineal glandis a hypothetical candidate for producing a mind's eye.Rick Strassmanand others have postulated that duringnear-death experiences(NDEs) anddreaming,the gland might secrete the hallucinogenic chemicalN,N-Dimethyltryptamine(DMT) to produce internal visuals when external sensory data isoccluded.However, this hypothesis has yet to be fully supported withneurochemicalevidence and plausible mechanism for DMT production.

The condition where a person lacks mental imagery is calledaphantasia.The term was first suggested in a 2015 study.

Common examples of mental images includedaydreamingand the mental visualization that occurs while reading a book. Another is of the pictures summoned by athletes during training or before a competition, outlining each step they will take to accomplish their goal.When a musician hears a song, they can sometimes "see" the song notes in their head, as well as hear them with all their tonal qualities.This is considered different from an after-effect, such as anafterimage.Calling up an image in our minds can be a voluntary act, so it can be characterized as being under various degrees of conscious control.

There are several theories as to how mental images are formed in the mind. These include thedual-code theory,the propositional theory, and the functional-equivalency hypothesis. The dual-code theory, created byAllan Paivioin 1971, is the theory that we use two separate codes to represent information in our brains: image codes and verbal codes. Image codes are things like thinking of a picture of a dog when you are thinking of a dog, whereas a verbal code would be to think of the word "dog".Another example is the difference between thinking of abstract words such asjusticeorloveand thinking of concrete words likeelephantorchair.When abstract words are thought of, it is easier to think of them in terms of verbal codes—finding words that define them or describe them. With concrete words, it is often easier to use image codes and bring up a picture of ahumanorchairin your mind rather than words associated or descriptive of them.

The propositional theory involves storing images in the form of a generic propositional code that stores the meaning of the concept not the image itself. The propositional codes can either be descriptive of the image or symbolic. They are then transferred back into verbal and visual code to form the mental image.

The functional-equivalency hypothesis is that mental images are "internal representations" that work in the same way as the actual perception of physical objects.In other words, the picture of a dog brought to mind when the worddogis read is interpreted in the same way as if the person was observing an actual dog before them.

Research has occurred to designate a specific neural correlate of imagery; however, studies show a multitude of results. Most studies published before 2001 suggest neural correlates of visual imagery occur inBrodmann area 17.Auditory performance imagery have been observed in the premotor areas, precunes, and medialBrodmann area 40.Auditory imagery in general occurs across participants in the temporal voice area (TVA), which allows top-down imaging manipulations, processing, and storage of audition functions.Olfactory imagery research shows activation in the anterior piriform cortex and the posterior piriform cortex; experts in olfactory imagery have larger gray matter associated to olfactory areas.Tactile imagery is found to occur in the dorsolateral prefrontal area, inferior frontal gyrus, frontal gyrus, insula, precentral gyrus, and the medial frontal gyrus with basal ganglia activation in the ventral posteriomedial nucleus and putamen (hemisphere activation corresponds to the location of the imagined tactile stimulus).Research in gustatory imagery reveals activation in the anterior insular cortex, frontal operculum, and prefrontal cortex.Novices of a specific form of mental imagery show less gray matter than experts of mental imagery congruent to that form.A meta-analysis of neuroimagery studies revealed significant activation of the bilateral dorsal parietal, interior insula, and left inferior frontal regions of the brain.Causal evidence from neurological patients with brain lesions demonstrates that vivid visual mental imagery is possible even when occipital visual areas are lesioned or disconnected from more anterior cortex. Visual mental imagery can instead be impaired by left temporal damage.Consistent with these findings, a meta-analysis of 27 neuroimaging studies demonstrated imagery-related activity in a region of the left ventral temporal cortex, which was dubbed the Fusiform Imagery Node.An additional Bayesian analysis excluded a role for occipital cortex in visual mental imagery, consistent with the evidence from neurological patients.

Imagery has been thought to cooccur with perception; however, participants with damaged sense-modality receptors can sometimes perform imagery of said modality receptors.Neuroscience with imagery has been used to communicate with seemingly unconscious individuals through fMRI activation of different neural correlates of imagery, demanding further study into low quality consciousness.A study on one patient with oneoccipital loberemoved found the horizontal area of their visual mental image was reduced.

Neural substrates of visual imagery

Visual imageryis the ability to create mental representations of things, people, and places that are absent from an individual’s visual field. This ability is crucial to problem-solving tasks, memory, and spatial reasoning.Neuroscientistshave found that imagery andperceptionshare many of the sameneural substrates,or areas of thebrainthat function similarly during both imagery and perception, such as thevisual cortexand higher visual areas. Kosslyn and colleagues (1999)showed that the early visual cortex, Area 17 and Area 18/19, is activated during visual imagery. They found that inhibition of these areas through repetitivetranscranial magnetic stimulation(rTMS) resulted in impaired visual perception and imagery. Furthermore, research conducted with lesioned patients has revealed that visual imagery and visual perception have the same representational organization. This has been concluded from patients in which impaired perception also experience visual imagery deficits at the same level of the mental representation.

Behrmann and colleagues (1992)describe a patient C.K., who provided evidence challenging the view that visual imagery and visual perception rely on the same representational system. C.K. was a 33-year old man withvisual object agnosiaacquired after a vehicular accident. This deficit prevented him from being able to recognize objects and copy objects fluidly. Surprisingly, his ability to draw accurate objects from memory indicated his visual imagery was intact and normal. Furthermore, C.K. successfully performed other tasks requiring visual imagery for judgment of size, shape, color, and composition. These findings conflict with previous research as they suggest there is a partial dissociation between visual imagery and visual perception. C.K. exhibited a perceptual deficit that was not associated with a corresponding deficit in visual imagery, indicating that these two processes have systems for mental representations that may not be mediated entirely by the same neural substrates.

Schlegel and colleagues (2013)conducted afunctional MRIanalysis of regions activated during manipulation of visual imagery. They identified 11 bilateralcorticaland subcortical regions that exhibited increased activation when manipulating a visual image compared to when the visual image was just maintained. These regions included theoccipital lobeandventral streamareas, twoparietal loberegions, theposterior parietal cortexand theprecuneuslobule, and threefrontal loberegions, thefrontal eye fields,dorsolateral prefrontal cortex,and theprefrontal cortex.Due to their suspected involvement inworking memoryandattention,the authors propose that these parietal and prefrontal regions, and occipital regions, are part of a network involved in mediating the manipulation of visual imagery. These results suggest a top-down activation of visual areas in visual imagery.

UsingDynamic Causal Modeling(DCM) to determine the connectivity of cortical networks, Ishai et al. (2010)demonstrated that activation of the network mediating visual imagery is initiated by prefrontal cortex and posterior parietal cortex activity. Generation of objects from memory resulted in initial activation of the prefrontal and the posterior parietal areas, which then activate earlier visual areas through backward connectivity. Activation of the prefrontal cortex and posterior parietal cortex has also been found to be involved in retrieval of object representations fromlong-term memory,their maintenance in working memory, and attention during visual imagery. Thus, Ishai et al. suggest that the network mediating visual imagery is composed of attentional mechanisms arising from the posterior parietal cortex and the prefrontal cortex.

Vividness of visual imagery is a crucial component of an individual’s ability to perform cognitive tasks requiring imagery. Vividness of visual imagery varies not only between individuals but also within individuals. Dijkstra and colleagues (2017)found that the variation in vividness of visual imagery is dependent on the degree to which the neural substrates of visual imagery overlap with those of visual perception. They found that overlap between imagery and perception in the entire visual cortex, the parietal precuneus lobule, the right parietal cortex, and the medial frontal cortex predicted the vividness of a mental representation. The activated regions beyond the visual areas are believed to drive the imagery-specific processes rather than the visual processes shared with perception. It has been suggested that the precuneus contributes to vividness by selecting important details for imagery. The medial frontal cortex is suspected to be involved in the retrieval and integration of information from the parietal and visual areas during working memory and visual imagery. The right parietal cortex appears to be important in attention, visual inspection, and stabilization of mental representations. Thus, the neural substrates of visual imagery and perception overlap in areas beyond the visual cortex and the degree of this overlap in these areas correlates with the vividness of mental representations during imagery.

Philosophical ideas

Main article:Mental representation

Mental images are an important topic in classical and modern philosophy, as they are central to the study ofknowledge.In theRepublic,Book VII,PlatohasSocratespresent theAllegory of the Cave:a prisoner, bound and unable to move, sits with his back to a fire watching the shadows cast on the cave wall in front of him by people carrying objects behind his back. These people and the objects they carry are representations of real things in the world. Unenlightened man is like the prisoner, explains Socrates, a human being making mental images from the sense data that he experiences.

The eighteenth-century philosopher BishopGeorge Berkeleyproposed similar ideas in his theory ofidealism.Berkeley stated that reality is equivalent to mental images—our mental images are not a copy of another material reality but that reality itself. Berkeley, however, sharply distinguished between the images that he considered to constitute the external world, and the images of individual imagination. According to Berkeley, only the latter are considered "mental imagery" in the contemporary sense of the term.

The eighteenth century British writer Dr.Samuel Johnsoncriticized idealism. When asked what he thought about idealism, he is alleged to have replied "I refute it thus!"as he kicked a large rock and his leg rebounded. His point was that the idea that the rock is just another mental image and has no material existence of its own is a poor explanation of the painful sense data he had just experienced.

David Deutsch addresses Johnson's objection to idealism inThe Fabric of Realitywhen he states that, if we judge the value of our mental images of the world by the quality and quantity of the sense data that they can explain, then the most valuable mental image—or theory—that we currently have is that the world has a real independent existence and that humans have successfully evolved by building up and adapting patterns of mental images to explain it. This is an important idea inscientific thought.

Critics ofscientific realismask how the inner perception of mental images actually occurs. This is sometimes called the "homunculusproblem "(see also themind's eye). The problem is similar to asking how the images you see on a computer screen exist in the memory of the computer. To scientificmaterialism,mental images and the perception of them must be brain-states. According to critics,scientific realists cannot explain where the images and their perceiver exist in the brain. To use the analogy of the computer screen, these critics argue thatcognitive scienceandpsychologyhave been unsuccessful in identifying either the component in the brain (i.e., "hardware" ) or the mental processes that store these images (i.e. "software" ).

In experimental psychology

Cognitive psychologistsand (later)cognitive neuroscientistshave empirically tested some of the philosophical questions related to whether and how the human brain uses mental imagery in cognition.

The types of rotation tests used by Shepard and Metzler

One theory of the mind that was examined in these experiments was the "brain as serial computer" philosophical metaphor of the 1970s. PsychologistZenon Pylyshyntheorized that the human mind processes mental images by decomposing them into an underlying mathematical proposition.Roger Shepardand Jacqueline Metzler challenged that view by presenting subjects with 2D line drawings of groups of 3D block "objects" and asking them to determine whether that "object" is the same as a second figure, some of which rotations of the first "object".Shepard and Metzler proposed that if we decomposed and then mentally re-imaged the objects into basic mathematical propositions, as the then-dominant view of cognition "as a serial digital computer"assumed, then it would be expected that the time it took to determine whether the object is the same or not would be independent of how much the object had been rotated. Shepard and Metzler found the opposite: a linear relationship between the degree of rotation in the mental imagery task and the time it took participants to reach their answer.

Thismental rotationfinding implied that the human mind—and the human brain—maintains and manipulates mental images as topographic and topological wholes, an implication that was quickly put to test by psychologists.Stephen Kosslynand colleaguesshowed in a series of neuroimaging experiments that the mental image of objects like the letter "F" are mapped, maintained and rotated as an image-like whole in areas of the human visual cortex. Moreover, Kosslyn's work showed that there are considerable similarities between the neural mappings for imagined stimuli and perceived stimuli. The authors of these studies concluded that, while the neural processes they studied rely on mathematical and computational underpinnings, the brain also seems optimized to handle the sort of mathematics that constantly computes a series of topologically-based images rather than calculating a mathematical model of an object.

Recent studies in neurology and neuropsychology on mental imagery have further questioned the "mind as serial computer" theory, arguing instead that human mental imagery manifestsboth visually and kinesthetically.For example, several studies have provided evidence that people are slower at rotating line drawings of objects such as hands in directions incompatible with the joints of the human body,and that patients with painful, injured arms are slower at mentally rotating line drawings of the hand from the side of the injured arm.

Some psychologists, including Kosslyn, have argued that such results occur because of interference in the brain between distinct systems in the brain that process the visual and motor mental imagery. Subsequentneuroimagingstudiesshowed that the interference between the motor and visual imagery system could be induced by having participants physically handle actual 3D blocks glued together to form objects similar to those depicted in the line-drawings. Amorim et al. have shown that, when a cylindrical "head" was added to Shepard and Metzler's line drawings of 3D block figures, participants were quicker and more accurate at solving mental rotation problems.They argue that motoric embodiment is not just "interference" that inhibits visual mental imagery but is capable of facilitating mental imagery.

As cognitive neuroscience approaches to mental imagery continued, research expanded beyond questions of serial versus parallel or topographic processing to questions of the relationship between mental images and perceptual representations. Both brain imaging (fMRI and ERP) and studies of neuropsychological patients have been used to test the hypothesis that a mental image is the reactivation, from memory, of brain representations normally activated during the perception of an external stimulus. In other words, if perceiving an apple activates contour and location and shape and color representations in the brain’s visual system, then imagining an apple activates some or all of these same representations using information stored in memory. Early evidence for this idea came from neuropsychology. Patients with brain damage that impairs perception in specific ways, for example by damaging shape or color representations, seem to generally to have impaired mental imagery in similar ways.Studies of brain function in normal human brains support this same conclusion, showing activity in the brain’s visual areas while subjects imagined visual objects and scenes.

The previously mentioned and numerous related studies have led to a relative consensus withincognitive science,psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy on the neural status of mental images. In general, researchers agree that, while there is nohomunculusinside the head viewing these mental images, our brains do form and maintain mental images as image-like wholes.The problem of exactly how these images are stored and manipulated within the human brain, in particular within language and communication, remains a fertile area of study.

One of the longest-running research topics on the mental image has basis on the fact that people report large individual differences in the vividness of their images. Special questionnaires have been developed to assess such differences, including theVividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ)developed byDavid Marks.Laboratory studies have suggested that the subjectively reported variations in imagery vividness are associated with different neural states within the brain and also different cognitive competences such as the ability to accurately recall information presented in picturesRodway, Gillies and Schepman used a novel long-term change detection task to determine whether participants with low and high vividness scores on the VVIQ2 showed any performance differences.Rodway et al. found that high vividness participants were significantly more accurate at detecting salient changes to pictures compared to low-vividness participants.This replicated an earlier study.

Recent studies have found that individual differences in VVIQ scores can be used to predict changes in a person's brain while visualizing different activities.Functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI) was used to study the association between early visual cortex activity relative to the whole brain while participants visualized themselves or another person bench pressing or stair climbing. Reported image vividness correlates significantly with the relative fMRI signal in the visual cortex. Thus, individual differences in the vividness of visual imagery can be measured objectively.

Logie, Pernet, Buonocore and Della Sala (2011) used behavioural and fMRI data for mental rotation from individuals reporting vivid and poor imagery on the VVIQ. Groups differed in brain activation patterns suggesting that the groups performed the same tasks in different ways. These findings help to explain the lack of association previously reported between VVIQ scores and mental rotation performance.

Beyond visual imagery is the Plymouth Sensory Imagery Questionnaire which measures seven senses. This form of imagery assessment correlates with the VVIQ for visual imagery and shows how other senses vary dependent on individual differences.

Training and learning styles

Someeducational theoristshave drawn from the idea of mental imagery in their studies oflearning styles.Proponents of these theories state that people often have learning processes that emphasize visual, auditory, and kinesthetic systems of experience.According to these theorists, teaching in multiple overlapping sensory systems benefits learning, and they encourage teachers to use content and media that integrates well with the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic systems whenever possible.

Educational researchers have examined whether the experience of mental imagery affects the degree of learning. For example, imagining playing a five-finger piano exercise (mental practice) resulted in a significant improvement in performance over no mental practice—though not as significant as that produced by physical practice. The authors of the study stated that "mental practice alone seems to be sufficient to promote the modulation of neural circuits involved in the early stages of motor skill learning".

Imagery training has been effective in a series of studies, mostly in sport where participants are taught formal skills to improve a mental image.Imagery training has also been effective with individuals with low abilities.

Visualization and religion

Mental visualization is used across world religions, particularly as an aid forprayerormeditation.

Christianity

Opinions on the value of visualization vary withinChristianity.InCatholicism,visualization plays a central role in the recitation of theRosary,where it may be used to visualize Biblical scenes.InEastern Orthodoxy,however, image-based prayer is generally frowned upon, because it is seen as an opening for demonic influence, and as contradictory to the aims ofhesychasticprayer.

Tibetan traditions

In general,VajrayanaBuddhism andBönutilize sophisticated visualization orimaginal(in the language ofJean HoustonofTranspersonal Psychology) processes in theTulpaconstruction of theyidamsadhana,kye-rim,anddzog-rimmodes ofmeditationand in theyantra,thangka,andmandalatraditions, where holding the fully realized form in the mind is a prerequisite prior to creating an 'authentic' new art work that will provide a sacred support or foundation for deity.

Substitution effects

Mental imagery can act as a substitute for the imagined experience: Imagining an experience can evoke similar cognitive, physiological, and behavioral consequences as having the corresponding experience in reality.At least four classes of such effects have been documented.

1. Imagined experiences are attributed evidentiary value like physical evidence.
2. Mental practicecan instantiate the same performance benefits as physical practice and reduction central neuropathic pain.
3. Imagined consumption of a food can reduce its actual consumption.
4. Imagined goal achievement can reduce motivation for actual goal achievement.

See also

• Aphantasia
• Animal cognition
• Audiation(imaginary sound)
• Cognition
• Creative visualization
• Fantasy (psychology)
• Fantasy prone personality
• Guided imagery
• Imagination
• Internal monologue
• Mental event
• Mental rotation
• Mind
• Motor imagery
• Spatial ability
• Tulpa
• Visual space
• Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire

Further reading

• Albert, J.-M. ‘’Mental Image and Representation. (French text byJean-Max Albertand translation by H. Arnold) Paris: Mercier & Associés, 2018.[1]
• Amorim, Michel-Ange, Brice Isableu and Mohammed Jarraya (2006) Embodied Spatial Transformations: “Body Analogy” for the Mental Rotation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
• Barsalou, L.W. (1999). "Perceptual Symbol Systems".Behavioral and Brain Sciences.22(4): 577–660.CiteSeerX10.1.1.601.93.doi:10.1017/s0140525x99002149.PMID11301525.S2CID351236.
• Bartolomeo, P (2002). "The Relationship Between Visual perception and Visual Mental Imagery: A Reappraisal of the Neuropsychological Evidence".Cortex.38(3): 357–378.doi:10.1016/s0010-9452(08)70665-8.PMID12146661.S2CID4485950.
• Bennett, M.R. & Hacker, P.M.S. (2003).Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience.Oxford: Blackwell.
• Bensafi, M.; Porter, J.; Pouliot, S.; Mainland, J.; Johnson, B.; Zelano, C.; Young, N.; Bremner, E.; Aframian, D.; Kahn, R.; Sobel, N. (2003). "Olfactomotor Activity During Imagery Mimics that During Perception".Nature Neuroscience.6(11): 1142–1144.doi:10.1038/nn1145.PMID14566343.S2CID5915985.
• Block, N (1983). "Mental Pictures and Cognitive Science".Philosophical Review.92(4): 499–539.doi:10.2307/2184879.JSTOR2184879.
• Brant, W. (2013). Mental Imagery and Creativity: Cognition, Observation and Realization. Akademikerverlag. pp. 227. Saarbrücken, Germany.ISBN978-3-639-46288-3
• Cui, X.; Jeter, C.B.; Yang, D.; Montague, P.R.; Eagleman, D.M. (2007)."Vividness of mental imagery: Individual variability can be measured objectively".Vision Research.47(4): 474–478.doi:10.1016/j.visres.2006.11.013.PMC1839967.PMID17239915.
• Deutsch, David (1998).The Fabric of Reality.Penguin Adult.ISBN978-0-14-014690-5.
• Egan, Kieran(1992).Imagination in Teaching and Learning.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Fichter, C.; Jonas, K. (2008)."Image Effects of Newspapers. How Brand Images Change Consumers' Product Ratings".Zeitschrift für Psychologie.216(4): 226–234.doi:10.1027/0044-3409.216.4.226.Archived fromthe originalon 2013-01-03.
• Finke, R.A. (1989).Principles of Mental Imagery.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Garnder, Howard. (1987)The Mind's New Science: A History of the Cognitive RevolutionNew York: Basic Books.
• Gur, R.C.; Hilgard, E.R. (1975). "Visual imagery and discrimination of differences between altered pictures simultaneously and successively presented".British Journal of Psychology.66(3): 341–345.doi:10.1111/j.2044-8295.1975.tb01470.x.PMID1182401.
• Kosslyn, Stephen M. (1983).Ghosts in the Mind's Machine: Creating and Using Images in the Brain.New York: Norton.
• Kosslyn, Stephen (1994)Image and Brain: The Resolution of the Imagery Debate.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Kosslyn, Stephen M.; Thompson, William L.; Kim, Irene J.; Alpert, Nathaniel M. (1995). "Topographic representations of mental images in primary visual cortex".Nature.378(6556): 496–498.Bibcode:1995Natur.378..496K.doi:10.1038/378496a0.PMID7477406.S2CID127386.
• Kosslyn, Stephen M.; Thompson, William L.; Wraga, Mary J.; Alpert, Nathaniel M. (2001). "Imagining rotation by endogenous versus exogenous forces: Distinct neural mechanisms".NeuroReport.12(11): 2519–2525.doi:10.1097/00001756-200108080-00046.PMID11496141.S2CID43067749.
• Logie, R.H.; Pernet, C.R.; Buonocore, A.; Della Sala, S. (2011). "Low and high imagers activate networks differentially in mental rotation".Neuropsychologia.49(11): 3071–3077.doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.07.011.PMID21802436.S2CID7073330.
• Marks, D.F. (1973). "Visual imagery differences in the recall of pictures".British Journal of Psychology.64(1): 17–24.doi:10.1111/j.2044-8295.1973.tb01322.x.PMID4742442.
• Marks, D.F. (1995)."New directions for mental imagery research".Journal of Mental Imagery.19:153–167.
• McGabhann. R, Squires. B, 2003, 'Releasing The Beast Within – A path to Mental Toughness', Granite Publishing, Australia.
• McKellar, Peter (1957).Imagination and Thinking.London: Cohen & West.
• Norman, Donald.The Design of Everyday Things.ISBN978-0-465-06710-7.
• Paivio, Allan (1986).Mental Representations: A Dual Coding Approach.New York: Oxford University Press.
• Parsons, Lawrence M (1987). "Imagined spatial transformations of one's hands and feet".Cognitive Psychology.19(2): 178–241.doi:10.1016/0010-0285(87)90011-9.PMID3581757.S2CID38603712.
• Parsons, Lawrence M (2003). "Superior parietal cortices and varieties of mental rotation".Trends in Cognitive Sciences.7(12): 515–551.doi:10.1016/j.tics.2003.10.002.PMID14643362.S2CID18955586.
• Pascual-Leone, Alvaro, Nguyet Dang, Leonardo G. Cohen, Joaquim P. Brasil-Neto, Angel Cammarota, and Mark Hallett (1995). Modulation of Muscle Responses Evoked by Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation During the Acquisition of New Fine Motor Skills.Journal of Neuroscience[2]
• Plato (2000).The Republic (New CUP translation into English).Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-48443-5.
• Plato (2003).Respublica (New CUP edition of Greek text).E Typographeo Clarendoniano.ISBN978-0-19-924849-0.
• Prinz, J.J. (2002).Furnishing the Mind: Concepts and their Perceptual Basis.Boston, MA: MIT Press.
• Pylyshyn, Zenon W (1973). "What the mind's eye tells the mind's brain: a critique of mental imagery".Psychological Bulletin.80:1–24.doi:10.1037/h0034650.S2CID264755021.
• Reisberg, Daniel (Ed.) (1992).Auditory Imagery.Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
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External links

• Mental Imageryin theStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy