MENTAL CONSTRUCTION

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MENTAL CONSTRUCTION

• David Pearson
• Room T10, William Guild Building
• d.g.pearson_at_abdn.ac.uk

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• Neomentalist research provided evidence for a
  functional similarity between internally-generated
  images and externally-produced percepts.
• This research does not directly address the issue
  of the role played by imagery during creative
  thought.
• To what extent can novel and creative discoveries
  be made purely on the basis of manipulating and
  inspecting mental images ?

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Mental Paper Folding

• Research by Shepard and Feng (1972) as a
  follow-up to work on mental rotation.

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• Results showed linear relationship between
  decision time and the number of folds that would
  be necessary to physically assemble the cube.

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• Mental folding appeared to emulate the attributes
  of physical manipulation in real world.
• Results also show that people can mentally
  assemble a 3-D cube from a 2-D pattern, and then
  use the image as a basis to make a decision.

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Mental Construction of 3D Objects

• Cooper (1990) examined mental construction in
  engineering students using isometric and
  orthographic views of abstract 3-D objects.

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Isometric and Orthographic Projections of 3D
objects
ISOMETRIC
ORTHOGRAPHIC
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Mental Construction of 3D Objects

• Cooper (1990) examined mental construction in
  engineering students using isometric and
  orthographic views of abstract 3-D objects.
• Study consisted of an orthographic compatibility
  problem-solving task, followed by a surprise
  isometric view recognition task.

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Results of Cooper (1990)
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• Results indicated a significant link between
  performance of both tasks.
• Probability of correctly recognising an isometric
  view of an object, given that the corresponding
  orthographic compatibility problem had been
  solved correctly, was 0.90
• If the corresponding orthographic compatibility
  problem had been solved incorrectly, the
  probability of correctly recognising the
  isometric view fell to 0.72

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• In a second experiment Cooper contrasted
  different presentations of isometric and
  orthographic views by adding an isometric
  problem-solving task and an orthographic
  recognition test.

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• The work of Shepard Feng and Cooper indicates
  that
• people are capable of mentally constructing
  three-dimensional representations from
  two-dimensional displays
• can then subsequently use these mentally
  constructed representation in further cognitive
  tasks.

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The Interpretation of Mentally Constructed Images

• Mental interpretation of images is an important
  aspect of creative thought i.e., Kekules
  linking of his image of a snake to the structure
  of the benzene molecule.
• Finke, Pinker Farah (1989) explored this issue
  with a guided image transformation task
• Participants mentally transformed alphanumeric
  and geometric symbols in response to verbally
  presented instructions. They were then asked to
  identify the final resulting pattern.

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Guided Image Manipulation Task (Finke, Pinker
Farah, 1989)

• Imagine a capital D
• Imagine a capital J
• Rotate the D to the left by 90 degrees
• Place the D on top of the J
• What object might this final pattern represent?

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• Participants correctly carried out
  transformations on 59 of trials. Out of these
  trials they correctly identified the emergent
  symbol 58 of the time.
• With partial transformations (20 of trials),
  emergent symbol was identified 13 of the time.
• With incorrect transformations (19 of trials),
  the emergent pattern was never correctly
  identified.
• Results suggest that it is only by transforming
  the presented symbols in the correct way that the
  emergent pattern can be recognised.

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• Critics argue that the emergent pattern can be
  guessed purely on the basis of the presented
  symbols alone (Chambers Reisberg, 1985).
• In a second experiment Finke et al. used stimuli
  in which the emergent patterns only became
  apparent after the final transformation had been
  carried through
• Participants were instructed to guess at each
  stage what they thought the emergent pattern
  could be.

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• Imagine a capital H
• Imagine a second capital H
• Rotate the second H clockwise through 90
  degrees
• Superimpose the secondH on top of the first
• What object might this final pattern resemble?

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• First Instruction 0 correct
• Second Instruction 4 correct
• Final Instruction 66 of trials correctly
  transformed.Out of these, 47 correctly
  identified

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• Partial transformations (19 of trials) yielded
  28 correct identifications.
• Incorrect transformations (15 of trials) yielded
  only a single correct identification.
• These experiments demonstrate image reconstrual,
  which Finke argues is essential during the
  creative use of imagery.

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• Finke also argues that combinatory play (or
  mental synthesis) requires that
• (1) mental images can depict the geometry of a
  shape sufficiently well enough to allow for
  mental reinterpretation.
• (2) people are able to apply shape
  classification procedures to the information
  depicted by mental images.

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Creative Synthesis

• One potential weakness of the guided image
  transformation task is that it lacks the apparent
  spontaneity of imagery use in real-life
  reasoning.
• Constrained nature of task may also restrict
  participants ability to make creative
  reconstruals of their images.
• Finke attempted to rectify this with creative
  visual synthesis task (Finke Slayton, 1988).

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• Participants are verbally presented with random
  groups of alphanumeric and geometric symbols, and
  then are given two minutes to mentally combine
  the symbols into any recognisable object that
  they can think of.
• E.g.,
• rectangle, triangle, rectangle, letter V,
  number 8

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• Recognisable patterns 38 of trials
• Difficult to recognise 32
• Wrong-part patterns 6
• No pattern 22
• In total participants produced patterns on 70 of
  trials, 38 of which were rated as depicting
  recognisable objects by independent judges.
• Again, potential criticism is that emergent
  patterns could be determined from viewing the
  presented symbols alone, without carrying out
  mental synthesis.

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• Finke Slayton carried out second two-stage
  experiment.
• Stage 1 participants presented with groups of
  randomly selected symbols and given 30 seconds to
  try and predict what emergent patterns they could
  discover without actually carrying out mental
  synthesis.
• Stage 2 participants completed creative
  synthesis task as in first experiment. Half of
  the symbol groups had been presented in stage 1,
  the other half were novel.

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• Symbol groups used in Stage 1
• recognisable patterns 44
• Novel symbol groups recognisable
  patterns 39
• Participants no more likely to discover a
  recognisable pattern from a novel group of
  symbols than they were from a group that had been
  used in Stage 1.
• Participants predicted 18 of the recognisable
  patterns they subsequently produced in Stage 2.
• An independent observer predicted 14.