Mental Imagery

Mental imagery can be defined as pictures in the mind or a visual representation in the absence of
environmental input. Not everybody can conjure up mental images at will. Sir Francis Galton
discovered this in 1883 when he asked 100 people, including prominent scientists, to form an image
of their breakfast table from that morning. Some had detailed images, others reported none at all.
What is the easiest way to make visual imagery stronger?
Everybody has mental imagery during dreams, including people who go blind at an early age. Some
individuals are capable of deep levels of hypnosis in which they can have visual hallucinations of
dreamlike clarity, but this is quite unusual. For most of us, mental imagery during states of
wakefulness is faint or difficult to manipulate. The best way to make it more vivid is to imitate the
conditions of sleep. When one is relaxed or half asleep, mental imagery can be quite vivid.
What do brain scans show about brain areas involved in mental imagery?
An abundance of evidence from brain scanning research shows that the same areas of the brain
used for normal perception are also activated by mental imagery. (Miyashita, 1995). In general,
imagination activates some of the same brain areas as normal perception For example, "thinking
about a telephone activates some of the same brain areas as seeing a telephone." (Posner, 1993)
Early, important studies of mental imagery came from Roger Shepard of Stanford University and
various colleagues. He used computer-generated block shapes similar to these:

One shape is different from the others.

Three of the shapes are the same as each other, only rotated. The fourth is different; it is a mirror
image of the others. Can you find the one that is a mirror image? To determine this, most subjects
must mentally rotate the figures, much as they would rotate a three-dimensional block model, to see if
each matches the others.
Why was the Cooper and Shepard research influential?
Following up on the first experiments with mental rotation, Cooper and Shepard (1973) found that the
time required for mental rotations depended upon the amount of rotation. This was a very important
finding, because it implied that mental images could be manipulated as if real.
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Sir Francis Galton, FRS (16 February 1822 17 January 1911) was an English Victorian progressive,
polymath, sociologist, psychologist,[1][2] anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer,
inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician, and statistician. He was knighted in 1909.
Galton produced over 340 papers and books. He also created the statistical concept of correlation
and widely promoted regression toward the mean. He was the first to apply statistical methods to the
study of human differences and inheritance of intelligence, and introduced the use of questionnaires
and surveys for collecting data on human communities, which he needed for genealogical and
biographical works and for his anthropometric studies.
He was a pioneer in eugenics, coining the term itself[3] and the phrase "nature versus nurture".[4] His
book Hereditary Genius (1869) was the first social scientific attempt to study genius and greatness.[5]
As an investigator of the human mind, he founded psychometrics (the science of measuring mental

faculties) and differential psychology and the lexical hypothesis of personality. He devised a method
for classifying fingerprints that proved useful in forensic science. He also conducted research on the
power of prayer, concluding it had none by its null effects on the longevity of those prayed for.[6] His
quest for the scientific principles of diverse phenomena extended even to the optimal method for
making tea[7]
As the initiator of scientific meteorology, he devised the first weather map, proposed a theory of
anticyclones, and was the first to establish a complete record of short-term climatic phenomena on a
European scale.[8] He also invented the Galton Whistle for testing differential hearing ability.[9]
He was cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton and half-cousin of Charles Darwin.
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The
Galton
Whistle
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By Nick Joyce & David B. Baker
Tags: History of Psychology
In the mid-1800s, Sir Francis Galton was presented with a dilemma. He wanted to test hearing ability
for higher frequencies but did not have a piece of equipment to adequately measure them. Using
some scientific ingenuity, he went about creating an object to produce the sound frequencies he
wanted to study. He ended up with a small brass tube with a slit at the end of it. Air would be forced
through the tube, coming out at the slit as an audible tone. Along the tube a siding piece could be
maneuvered up or down the tube to create different frequencies. The sliding plug was marked so that
precise notes could be recorded in research. It became known as the Galton Whistle.
Galtons 1883 book Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development described some of the
pioneering research he conducted with the whistle. Galton and subsequent researchers used these
whistles to create increasingly higher frequency tones to test research subjects as well as animal
abilities to hear different tones. Galton was able to determine that the normal upper limit of human
hearing was about 18 kHz. He also noted that the ability to hear higher frequencies declined with age.
(Reportedly, Galton derived much pleasure from demonstrating this deficit to older people.)
From his early tests on humans, Galton adapted his new whistle to test the hearing of various
animals. He attached the whistle to a long tube with a rubber squeeze ball at the other end. Galton
would go the enclosures of different animals, at the zoo, use the long stick to reach toward the
animals and squeeze it to make a pitch. He then would watch for the animals ears to prick up as an
indication of hearing. He was also a fan of walking through the streets and seeing which types of
dogs could hear higher pitches (small dogs were better at this than large dogs). Galton noted that
natural selection had produced the best hearing of shrill notes in cats.
Early comparative psychologists took the crude animal assessment techniques of Galton and refined
them. Galton whistles were used in the examination of hearing in reptiles (Kuroda, 1923), insects
(Wever & Bray, 1933), hedgehogs (Chang, 1936), bats (Galambos, 1941), and of course rats (Finger,
1941; Smith, 1941).
The whistle was combined in the psychological laboratories with acoumeters, tuning forks, and other
hearing instruments. The Galton whistle was manufactured with tables of vibration rates to five digits.
The whistle itself went through several different design changes to make its tones more precise and
the Edelmann Institute, one manufacturer of Galton whistles, added a diaphragm to the device to
prevent the sin of over-blowing (Ruckmick, 1923). Early psychologists made design changes of their

own for the necessity of their experiments. At Harvard, Frank Pattie invented a blower that could
deliver a constant, steady stream of air pressure through the whistle for up to a half hour. Despite its
simplicity, the whistle was used in highly complex and revealing psychological experiments. One such
early experiment combined a Galton whistle with a Titchener Sound Cage (see the History Corner in
the January 2009 Observer for more information about the Sound Cage) to study differences in ear
sensitivity toward sound (Ferree & Collins, 1911).
From its creation in 1876, the Galton Whistle is still in use today, most commonly known as a dog
whistle. The Archives of the History of American Psychology is home to the older version of the
Galton whistle pictured above. An invention of simplicity and imagination, Galtons whistle has played
a significant role in our understanding of auditory processing.
Galton Whistle
The Galton whistle, invented by Sir Frances Galton (1822-1911), was one of the earliest devices used
in testing hearing.
It was used in the first quarter of the 20th century, but was later abandoned when better instruments
were introduced, including the audiometer.
The Galton whistle can be adjusted to produce very high frequency sounds between 5000 Hz and
42,000 Hz.
You adjust the frequency by moving a slider through a scale of 0 to 16 (right side) with 16 being the
lowest frequency, i. e. 5000 Hz. (Click on the picture on the right to enlarge it to see this detail better.)
Because it could produce high-frequency sounds, the Galton whistle was instrumental in discovering
presbycusis, the gradual loss of high frequency hearing due to aging