This thesis aims to show a relationship between mental imagery and sensory perception through texts that prime change blindness between mental images and visual displays. In Experiment 1, participants read short texts depicting a visual scene. Following the text, one of three types of photographs was presented: a photograph representing the scene exactly (match), a photograph representing the scene with a change (mismatch), or a photograph representing an unrelated scene (filler). Participants judged whether the picture matched the preceding text. Three types of changes were presented: color, deletion, and addition. Mirroring results from studies in visual perception, subjects showed change blindness in comparing mental images with pictures, even though critical information from the original text was recognized with a high degree of accuracy. A text variable was also included to measure the effects of language and attentional focus on change detection: each text contained a final sentence with relevant or irrelevant information related to the changed aspect of the scene. Although there were no differences in accuracy of change detection, subjects were faster to detect changes with relevant texts than irrelevant texts. Experiment 2 served as a control for comparing types of change blindness in a conventional flicker paradigm without mental imagery. As a whole, these results mirror those within change blindness studies investigating visual perception—suggesting that focused attention is necessary in comparing mental images and pictures and that mental imagery is analogous to its corresponding perceptual mode. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Psychology in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2004. / Date of Defense: April 27, 2004. / Language comprehension, perceptual symbols, change blindness, mental imagery / Includes bibliographical references. / Rolf Zwaan, Professor Directing Thesis; Mike Kaschak, Committee Member; Chris Schatschneider, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_168080 |
| Contributors | Aveyard, Mark (authoraut), Zwaan, Rolf (professor directing thesis), Kaschak, Mike (committee member), Schatschneider, Chris (committee member), Department of Psychology (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
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