Mental scanning of visual images generated from verbal descriptions: Towards a model of image accuracy

Structural properties of spatial representations in blind people: Scanning images constructed from haptic exploration or from locomotion in a 3-D audio virtual environment

“…The image-scanning paradigm offers a particularly useful way of finding out whether the scanning effect (i.e., the linear increase in scanning time with increasing distance) will also be detected after verbal descriptions of spatial configurations are processed in the absence of any prior visual contact with the corresponding visual layout. Several previous studies have reported evidence that spatial mental images constructed from verbal descriptions can indeed preserve metric information and, thus, achieve structural coherence that makes them similar to perception-based spatial images (e.g., Denis & Cocude, 1992;Denis, Gonçalves, & Memmi, 1995).…”

Two kinds of visual perspective taking

“…In mental scanning tasks, participants are instructed to imagine tracing a path in a mental image. RTs are generally proportional to the length of the path (Denis, Gonçalves, & Memmi, 1995;Kosslyn, 1973).…”

Different cognitive processes in two image-scanning paradigms

“…Kosslyn et al (1978) interpreted this result as evidence that mental images incorporate the metric information present in the original stimulus. The result was replicated in a variety of subsequent experiments, including those in which the mental image of the configuration was constructed on the basis of verbal descriptions (e.g., Denis & Cocude, 1989, 1992Denis, Gonçalves, & Memmi, 1995).…”