Perceptual content and the content of mental imagery

Nánay, Bence

doi:10.1007/s11098-014-0392-y

Cited by 98 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 81 publications

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“…Interestingly, and as we propose here, it may be the case that the focus of attention is a domain-general, shared resource that can either select internal or external information, depending on the specific task demands. In agreement with this modern notion, it has been previously found that the same representational space is used for internally and externally attended stimuli (Burgess et al, 2007;O'Craven, Downing, & Kanwisher, 1999;Nanay, 2015;Nobre, Coull, Maquet, and Frith, 2004). In addition, it has been argued that information in WM is at the interface between the external and internal environment, as certain WM tasks cause interference for both external and internal attention .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 58%

Switching attention from internal to external information processing: A review of the literature and empirical support of the resource sharing account

et al. 2019

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Despite its everyday ubiquity, not much is currently known about cognitive processes involved in flexible shifts of attention between external and internal information. An important model in the task-switching literature, which can serve as a blueprint for attentional flexibility, states that switch costs correspond to the time needed for a serial control mechanism to reallocate a limited resource from the previous task context to the current one. To formulate predictions from this model when applied to a switch between perceptual attention (external component) and working memory (WM; internal component), we first need to determine whether a single, serial control mechanism is in place and, subsequently, whether a limited resource is shared between them. Following a review of the literature, we predicted that a between-domain switch cost should be observed, and its size should be either similar or reduced compared to the standard, within-domain, switch cost. These latter two predictions derive from a shared resource account between external and internal attention or partial independence among them, respectively. In a second phase, we put to the test these opposing predictions in four successive behavioral experiments by means of a new paradigm suited to compare directly between-(internal to external) and within-(external to external) domain switch costs. Across them, we demonstrated the existence of a reliable between-domain switch cost whose magnitude was similar to the within-domain one, thereby lending support to the resource-sharing account.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 58%

Switching attention from internal to external information processing: A review of the literature and empirical support of the resource sharing account

et al. 2019

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“…Does it influence your imaginative episodes that you are holding a cup of hot coffee or a teddy bear or that you've just watched a boring documentary? The answer is that it definitely does: it has been known for a long time that imagination is extremely sensitive to all kinds of external and seemingly irrelevant influences (see the locus classicus , Feingold, ; and see also more specific findings about the influences on mental imagery: Segal, ; Segal and Nathan, ; Nanay, , ; Raftopoulos, Forthcoming).…”

Section: Conclusion: Imagination and The Empirical Findings About Decmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Imagination in Decision‐Making

Nánay

2016

Mind & Language

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The psychological mechanism of decision‐making has traditionally been modeled with the help of belief‐desire psychology: the agent has some desires (or other pro‐attitudes) and some background beliefs and deciding between two possible actions is a matter of comparing the probability of the satisfaction of these desires given the background beliefs in the case of the performance of each action. There is a wealth of recent empirical findings about how we actually make decisions that seems to be in conflict with this picture. My aim is to outline an alternative model that is consistent with these empirical findings. This alternative model emphasizes the role imagination plays in our decisions: when we decide between two possible actions, we imagine ourselves in the situation that we imagine to be the outcome of these two actions and then compare these two imaginings.

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“…And the way neuroscientists and psychologists talk about mental imagery has nothing to do with little pictures in the head. Neuroscience considers mental imagery to be perceptual processing that is not triggered by corresponding sensory stimulation in the relevant sense modality (Kosslyn et al 1995;Pearson et al 2015;Nanay 2015Nanay , 2018. Mental imagery in this sense is as scientifically and ontologically unproblematic as perception.…”

Section: Criterion Bmentioning

confidence: 99%

Entity Realism About Mental Representations

Nánay

2019

Erkenn

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The concept of mental representation has long been considered to be central concept of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. But not everyone agrees. Neo-behaviorists aim to explain the mind (or some subset thereof) without positing any representations. My aim here is not to assess the merits and demerits of neo-behaviorism, but to take their challenge seriously and ask the question: What justifies the attribution of representations to an agent? Both representationalists and neo-behaviorists tend to take it for granted that the real question about representations is whether we should be realist about the theory of representationalism. This paper is an attempt to shift the emphasis from the debate concerning realism about theories to the one concerning realism about entities. My claim is that regardless of whether we are realist about representational theories of the mind, we have compelling reasons to endorse entity realism about mental representations.

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Perceptual content and the content of mental imagery

Cited by 98 publications

References 81 publications

Switching attention from internal to external information processing: A review of the literature and empirical support of the resource sharing account

Switching attention from internal to external information processing: A review of the literature and empirical support of the resource sharing account

The Role of Imagination in Decision‐Making

Entity Realism About Mental Representations

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