Mental Imagery-Research

A mental image or mental picture is the representation in a person's mind of the physical world outside of that person. [1]

Mental imagery is obviously an aspect of our daily lives. Mental imagery is particularly common when we are in important events and when we want to accomplish something. For example, athletes; may build up an image of themselves winning a race and how they are going to accomplish it. This is proven by “Golfer Jack Nicklaus” himself as he says. "I never hit a shot even in practice without having a sharp in-focus picture of it in my head. It's like a colour movie. First, I "see" the ball where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting up high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes, and I "see" the ball going there: its path, trajectory, and shape, even its behaviour on landing. Then there's a sort of fade-out, and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images into reality and only at the end of this short private Hollywood spectacular do I select a club and step up to the ball."[2]

 

Looking deeply into mental imagery, I confirmed that you can also create a realistic image in your mind as well as made up images. Scientists recommend mental imagery- as a good way to relax- as it makes your mind to be at ease especially in stressful situations.

I started looking at information on how to create this realistic scene in our minds. All that was recommended of making the scenery or image in our minds was to make it emotional, full of action and obviously detailed.

• Action - Break down the image into small components and visualise those components. (Sprinting - consider the action of the arms, legs, trunk, head, feet, hands, breathing etc.)
• Emotion - Try to include emotional feelings in your images. Refresh your memory constantly by emphasising specific sensory awareness (e.g. smells, the wind) during training
• Detail - Incorporate as many of your senses as possible into your imagery so the scene is as clear and realistic as real life itself
• Positive result - This is essential, "you only achieve what you believe" [3]

 

I found out those memories in our mind and the images in our minds are false. I agree with this ideology because when I went to New York and came back home, I tried remembering how the statue of liberty looks like. I had the image in my mind but I was never able to see it in full details.

“We investigated whether guided imagery instructions would increase the likelihood of false memory creation and of remembering previously unremembered true events. In three interviews, participants repeatedly were asked to remember several true events (based on parent reports) and one false event (created by the experimenters). In a guided imagery condition, if participants could not recall an event (either a true of a false event) they were asked to form a mental image of the event and describe the image to the interviewer. In a control condition, if participants could not recall an event they were asked to quietly think about the event for 1 min. Participants in the imagery condition were more likely to create a false event and recover memories of previously unavailable true events (although it was unclear whether the recovered memories were truly recalled or created in response to the interview demands). We argue that the creation of false childhood memories involves both memory reconstruction and errors in source monitoring.”[4]

 

How is this related to my theme “skyline”?

When I came back from New York, I began to recall the events that took place in New York City. After a few minutes, I realized that when remembering things or thinking the memories or thoughts are never really too clear in your minds. This can be related to dreams as scientists say that everyone dreams all of the time but sometimes we just don’t remember it. I then tried to remember the buildings I saw in New York but even though I could imagine it, I asked myself why we do not see memories or an image clearly in our minds. This then inspired me to research about “mental imagery” and how scientists explain “false images” in our minds.