Mental Imagery: Investigating the Limits of Mental Partitioning

Introduction

Do we form mental models which bear an analogical relation to the real world like those of a photograph? Has the language of thought an analogue nature (it makes use of mental imagery) or whether it is exclusively of digital nature like language?

Objectives

The basic aim of the present study is to contribute to the ongoing work on mental imagery by extending the research to an unexplored area that of mental partitioning.

Methods

The present research sample consisted of 498 participants (234 males and 264 females). We used the SPSS software package in order to analyze our data.

Results

According to our results, we detected significant peculiarities in the cognitive performance of the participants in the tasks of mental partitioning of the Moebius strip, indicating certain limitations inherent in human thinking.

Conclusions

The position we are led to adopt is closer to that of Pylyshyn (2003), who maintained that visual mental imagery depends on abstract form of thought and on previous knowledge. Specifically, it rests on previous abstract propositional thought and knowledge rather than on concrete perceptual processes like the ones proposed by Kosslyn and Sheppard. The present work investigates a potentially valuable theoretical basis in imagery research for understanding maladaptive imagery across various related clinical disorders, while encouraging multidisciplinary approaches among cognitive psychological/neuroscientific and clinical domains.