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Mental imagery is the quasi-perceptual state of consciousness in which the mind appears to be able to create sensory-like experience. It is often cited as having a crucial role in creative thought; it is often associated with successful acts and performances across a wide range of creative tasks, including the development of scientific models, the conceptualization of architectural design, and the aspects of everyday problem-solving. Despite its assumed role in creative thought, its exact contribution remains a debated issue. This chapter outlines some of the anecdotal evidence that supports the link between imagery and creative thought. It also reviews evidence garnered from a number of experimental studies that have examined the use of imagery under controlled conditions. It also discusses the extent to which representational theories of imagery have failed to directly account for the phenomenology that is associated with imagery.

This chapter sets the behavioral and neural background of action representations by using the paradigm of mental imagery, which has revealed a fruitful approach of a prototypical class of action representations, namely motor images. It describes first the “kinematic” content of action representations, as revealed by mental chronometry experiments with motor images. It then describes the physiological changes which can be observed during experimental manipulation of this kinematic content. A special section is devoted to the functional anatomy of action representations, as revealed by neuroimaging techniques during motor imagery and other action-related mental states. Finally, some of the consequences of the embodiment of action representations for learning and rehabilitation are examined.

For cognitive scientists, the term mental imagery typically first brings to mind either the protracted debate over the nature of the representations used in imagery or the role of imagery as a mnemonic. The “imagery debate” frequently overshadows the question of the everyday functions of mental imagery, which are at least as important as the questions that have received the most attention. This chapter moves beyond questions such as “What is imagery?” and “Can imagery enhance memory?” to ask, “What is the primary psychological function of imagery?” In doing so, it argues that mental imagery affords us more than the mental rotation of stacked cubes—it allows us to simulate reality at will, and, because of this, allows us to predict what we would experience in a specific situation or after we perform a specific action. This ability not only allows us to reconstruct the past but also to anticipate what may occur in the near and distant future.

This chapter outlines a neurologically plausible theory of visual mental imagery that posits depictive representations. The goal is not to review the theory in detail, but rather to provide enough information to show that depictive representations can in fact function effectively within a plausible information-processing system. It also demonstrates that neuroscientific data are in fact relevant to settling the question as to whether depictive representations are used in imagery.

This chapter provides a review of the main results of neuroimaging experiments that have examined the neural underpinning of mental imagery and its comparison with visual perception. It explores how visual, auditory, and motor imagery work. It focuses on a new research area, the use of imagery in stimulating the social world.

This book explores the utility of computational ideas for understanding what the brain does. This chapter considers the issues and positions in the imagery debate and puts them in context. An overview of the subsequent chapters is then presented.

This chapter examines the nature of propositional alternatives to depictive theories of imagery. It argues that depictive representation in imagery is not an inherently flawed concept; there are no compelling a priori reasons to reject the use of depictive imagery in psychological explanations. Only the most simplistic “picture metaphor” conception of imagery can be rejected outright. The essential claim that imagery is a distinct representation system, utilizing representations of a special depictive format, is neither internally inconsistent, incoherent, nor paradoxical. Imagery is not necessarily only a special aspect of a more general propositional representation system. There is nothing inherently inconsistent or incoherent in the notion of a distinct imagery processing system, nothing that would demand that proposition-like representations in fact do most of human information processing. Explicit theories are needed. The foregoing discussion underlines the need to specify exactly how particular sets of processes work over representations that have particular characteristics. Without such specification, we have great liberty in the sorts of properties that follow from a given form of representation, and we can continue to offer arguments and counterarguments on both sides indefinitely.

Pragmatic representations are perceptual states that attribute action-properties. Pragmatic mental imagery is mental imagery that attributes action-properties. Pragmatic mental imagery can serve as the representational component of the immediate antecedent of our actions, but it plays some further roles in our mental life. Some (not all) pretence actions, for example, can be explained with the help of pragmatic mental imagery. And the recently popular concept of “alief” can also be elucidated by this concept.

This chapter turns to an entirely different class of criticisms of the claim that visual mental images depict information. These broadsides against depictive theories hinge on attempts to explain away the data. One set of critiques rests on the idea that participants in imagery experiments use “tacit knowledge” about perception when they are asked to visualize (such as the unconscious belief that it would take longer to scan greater distances over a surface when searching for an object); according to this argument, the participants use such knowledge to mimic the behavior they think they would exhibit in perception. The chapter analyzes such claims carefully and rebuts them.

This chapter begins by summarizing the arguments against the idea that topographically organized areas are used in visual mental imagery and the arguments that even if they are used, they play no essential role. It then addresses each argument in turn, considering counterarguments and evidence to the contrary. It discusses a meta-analysis of studies of visual mental imagery. This meta-analysis untangles what might at first appear to be inconsistencies in the literature, and provides strong support for the claim that topographically organized areas support depictive representations during visual mental imagery.

This chapter proposes that formalist and Institutional approaches to the definition of art are both conceptually flawed and involve cultural exclusion in an unacceptable way. A sustained critical assessment of Bell and Beardsley, and then Dickie and Danto's difficulties in these areas is offered. An alternative approach is then developed, which emphasizes the image's interpretative style as a distinctive mode of the aesthetic, and explores its important connections with mental imagery and the structure of self-consciousness. This offers the basis of a normative definition of art with a universal orientation, rather than one based on the centrality of marginal western idioms.

This chapter focuses on mental imagery. It discusses the ways that imagery in various modes — particularly visual and motor imagery — are systematically related to their perceptual counterparts. It argues that motor imagery is a form of perceptual imagery.

This chapter presents imagery’s basic characteristics and its relationship to visual perception and cognitive functions, and discusses the pictorial and propositional theories of imagery. The association of imagery with visual perception and working memory is discussed with a focus on the importance of working memory. The chapter focuses on the importance of mental imagery in learning, reasoning, and mathematical abilities, along with its role in athletic performances, and discusses mental image generation from either long-term memory or perception. It explores the question of whether the brain region responsible for perceptual processing is also responsible for the development of mental images.

This chapter explores the potential role of mental and/or motor imagery during the acquisition of surgical skills, for example, the training and maturation of surgeons. It examines the data showing that acquisition and performance of emergency procedure can be improved by the use of imagery. It provides some guidelines for the implementation of imagery in surgical procedures.

This chapter focuses on the use of mental and/or motor imagery in patients with early and late onset blindness. A review of literature indicates that blind people are able to form mental images, even though they do not use the same strategies as sighted people. It also discusses whether early and late blind subjects make use of distinct body representation during motor imagery. It examines how blind patients keep the ability to form mental image.

This chapter discusses the various phenomena that might, or might not, be kinds of recreative imaginings. Imagery, in its various forms, is, and so far are fantasy and supposition. Supposition is an interesting case since its nature is clarified by appealing to the idea of desire-like imaginings introduced in Chapter 1.

The previous chapters showed that the conceptual arguments against depictive representations are easily countered, and illustrated the rich harvest of empirical findings that supports the depictive view. It was also shown that no empirical findings pose a serious challenge to the claim that depictive representations are used in visual mental imagery. Moreover, it was shown that it is possible to formulate a neurologically plausible theory of imagery in which depictive representations play a central role. Given all of this, why has the imagery debate persisted for so long? This chapter presents three overarching reasons. First, the two sides hold fundamentally different views of what a theory of imagery (and cognition in general) should look like; second, they disagree fundamentally about the role of the brain in theorizing about mental events; and third, there are sociological and personal reasons for the differences in views.