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Many debates continue to rage in cognitive psychology. Give an account of the origin, development and

current status of one of these debates, such as mental imagery:propositional versus functional theories.

The nature of the debate

What is a visual image or picture? Aristotle believed that only rational creatures possessed the

ability to access and manipulate deliberative Phantasmata, an internal imaging process and faculty he

understood as being fundamental to memory function and not related to language functionally (Modrak,

2001). While the Behaviourist revolution that began with Watson in the early 20th century did not deny

the existence of internal spatial representations, it disregarded them as useful for the purposes of the

scientific study of human psychology (Kantowitz, Roediger & Elmes, 2009). According to Friedberg &

Silverman (2005) mental images are “A mental representation of an object or scene that preserves the

metric spatial information” (p. 139) and Thomas (2010) posits that internal representations can be

referred to as

“1) quasi-perceptual conscious experience per se; 2) hypothetical picture-like

representations in the mind and/or brain that give rise to {1}; or 3) hypothetical inner
representations of any sort (picture-like or otherwise) that directly give rise to {1}”

That we employ some form of mental imagery for many aspects of our cognitive function is agreed by

most (for counter arguments see Faw, 2009), the current question for cognitive psychology is how the

representations are formed and whether the basis for the formation of these internal representations

pictorial or propositional (Kosslyn, 2003)? This question has been at the heart of a fierce debate since the

1970's and has still to reach a satisfactory resolution (Thomas, 2010). While the role of mental imagery

in human cognition is of importance, it is not the crux of the debate with which this essay is primarily

concerned. The goal of this essay is to track the main threads of psychological debate that deal with

whether imagining-objects and other spatial phenomena is akin to internally representing an image or

pictorial equivalent, or whether the construct of these memories consists of a type of verbally-based

interpretation of visual events attended to by the language and semantic areas of the brain. Additionally,

it is concerned with which of these theses is supported from a neuropsychological perspective. As Thomas

(2010) clarifies the analogue versus propositional debate is about the “...nature and mechanism of

imagery itself” but the debate has ramifications for philosophy, human cognition, neurology, pedagogy

and other areas of human understanding.

 While studies of knowledge representation, memory and memory function have influenced

aspects of this discourse they are considered too voluminous to be interpreted in detail as part of this

commentary. It is acknowledged however that research conducted by Anderson & Bower (1973) into the

representation of knowledge within a network of semantic associations which they called human

associative memory (HAM), and continued research on this topic, leading to what they called adaptive

control of thought (ACT*), acted as a precursor to their theoretical stance on mental imagery. This is due

to both areas of research being underpinned by a semantic and propositional functional basis for their

understanding of the representation of knowledge and the elicitation of image-like representations in the

mind.

The Cognitive Psychological debate

The genesis of the core argument between the functional and propositional accounts for mental

imagery could be said to have been research by Pavio, Yuille & Madigan (1968). The purpose of this

research was not to investigate mental images per se, its focus was to construct a scale on which the

perceived strength of certain nouns would elicit mental images. This was part of a study of the mnemonic

effects of imagery and eventually fed into Pavio's (1971) dual-coding theory (DCT). Pavio and his

associates suggested that mental images (alongside verbal representations) played a significant role in

the representation of information in memory (Solso, 2001). However DCT does not explicitly deal with

the structure of the internal representational data, be it image or verbally based in its construction, its

focus is on function rather than structure and how these coding systems interact and combine during

memory recall and other cognitive tasks. As Pavio (1971) states:

“Non-verbal imagery and verbal processes are distinguished here primarily in terms of their
functions as symbolic systems, although an assumed relationship between the two processes
and visual and sensory modalities has functional implications that are important to later
discussions”. (p. 11)

Pavio's research had identified a vacuum in terms of knowledge about the underlying structures of the

image-based components of memory he proposed in his DCT. This gap in the psychological discourse

began to be closed by Shepard & Chipman (1970) who introduced the term “second order isomorphism”.

Shepard & Chipman's (1970) hypotheses held that there should be a close correlation between the way

we engage with our internal representations of objects and how we engage with those objects in reality

and that, while this process did not internally represent objects in a structurally equivalent way (i.e. first

order isomorphism) to their real world counter-parts, it was nonetheless functionally aligned.
 The functional-equivalency hypothesis was met with counter research claims however. Anderson

and Bower (1973) had, as previously stated, been already conceptualising the function of knowledge

representation by means of a propositional-semantic framework. They advanced this argument into the

discussion regarding the internalisation of mental imagery by claiming that the only type of knowledge

representation (which must include image representation) is propositional in nature (Solso, 2001). Their

conceptual-propositional account posited that the form of the conceptual cognitive element held in

memory was qualitatively different from an imagined representation. They suggested that pictorial

memories were represented by propositional abstractions that related to an image and were simply a by-

product of this coding process as they state:

“The only difference between the internal interpretation of a linguistic input and a memory
image is detail of information” (Anderson & Bower, 1973, p. 205)

Their argument against the functional/analogue hypothesis also held that from the point of view of

cognitive efficiency, the amount of storage capacity required to hold the raw data for all pictorially

encoded content and subsequent retrieval make it improbable. Also, from a perspective of perceiving a

visual event and subsequent recall of the same event from memory, they argue that if it is the case that

these processes are completed by an homunculus type entity in our heads, why is the interpretation

(during perception) not completed at the point of input instead of being repeated during every

subsequent recall of the event (Anderson & Bower, 1973)?

Pylyshyn (1973) also argued from a conceptual-propositional perspective and continues to

propound counter arguments against functional-equivalency (see Pylyshyn, 1983, 2002). Pylyshyn

(1973) is critical of certain aspects of the conclusions made by Anderson (1972). He implies that

Anderson has been too narrow in his distinction between the memories we have about how things look

and what they resemble. This error, Pylyshyn (1973) concludes, means that Anderson has a flawed

understanding of the appearance (the what) of things which he says are based on experiential

knowledge. This is different to “functional information” (p. 5) i.e. the how things look, which is stored by

means of propositional abstraction. Like Anderson, Pylyshyn believes this is so in order to save cognitive

capacity. While Pylyshyn and Anderson concurred for the most part in their understanding of how images

were coded and recalled from memory, the functional-equivalency hypothesis was also being bolstered by

research in other areas of cognitive psychology.

Shepard & Metzler (1971) provided strong evidence of a relationship between the time taken to

internally manipulate an image and the amount of manipulation executed. Their rotation experiments

required subjects to judge whether two forms or 3d shapes were the same; in some cases one of the
forms would be a mirror image, therefore not the same, in other cases the form would be identical except

for some degree of rotation (Solso, 2001). What Shepard and Metzler found was an almost direct

correlation between the degree of rotation of the form and the time required to select the “same” forms.

This assertion was, inevitably ,rebuffed by Pylyshyn (2002) who argued that the internal representation

of the image was being iteratively reconstituted at slightly different orientations. Nonetheless, the

concept of mental rotation was somewhat supported at a neurological level in an fMRI study conducted

by Cohen et al (1996) who found that subjects who performed mental rotation tasks utilised that same

areas of the brain used in physically tracking movement and encoding spatial relationships. They also

surmised that “mental imagery engages the same, or similar, neural imagery as direct perception”

(Cohen et al. 1996). A member of the research team involved in the fMRI study was Stephen Kosslyn

who, in previous years had also made significant contributions to the functional-equivalency side of the

mental imagery debate as will now be examined.

Kosslyn (1973) demonstrated that there are similarities between the processing of the spatial

characteristics of both a mental image and a visually perceived object (Solso, 2001).These experiments

showed that the time required to scan mental images was similar to the time required to scan pictures in

the real world. This discovery led Kosslyn to ask questions regarding other processes involved in the use

of mental images. In 1975 Kosslyn demonstrated that size was a spatial property that was also handled

in a similar way in actual visual perception and in the imagination. Subjects in this experiment were

asked to make observations about 4 different pairs of animals, the pairs all contained a rabbit paired with

a one other animal; an elephant, a fly, a fly sized elephant and an elephant sized fly. He found that

subjects took longer to describe details that belonged to the smaller objects in the pairs than it did to

describe details on the larger objects (Solso, 2001). These image scanning and scaling experiments did

seem to suggest that in terms of the amount of time required, making judgements about distance and

scale in our mental representations corresponded to the time required to make the same judgements

with regard to actual pictures (Wilye & McMahon, 2010). However, Kosslyn's scanning and scaling

experiments were argued by Pylyshyn (1981) and Morgan (1979) to be flawed in their execution.

Pylyshyn (1981) posits that subjects used in the experiments confounded the results because of the tacit

knowledge they held about their spatial environment, i.e. when asked to scan from one point to another

on a mental representation, as they implicitly know that it takes longer to do so on a real picture they will

report the same effect for the internal representation.

Known in psychology as demand characteristics this phenomenon has been particularly

associated with mental representation experiments and is described by Orne (1962 cited in Thomas,
2010) as “the totality of cues which convey an experimental hypothesis to the subject” which could be

said to be a fundamental weakness in the experimental process of investigating mental imagery. From

the conceptual-propositional side this weakness has been illustrated by research and is related to the

idea of cognitive penetrability. This idea holds that cognitive processes are said to be penetrable if they

can be affected by the ideals or goals of the subject, and impenetrable if they cannot (Thomas, 2010).

Pylyshyn (1978) argues that the case for pictorial representation of images from memory holds that

mental images should be cognitively impenetrable since they utilise the same neural machinery as visual

perceptive processes. However, this is not the case as optical illusions demonstrate, even when visual

perception is deceived and the deception is known and acknowledged by the observer, their percept is

still affected by the illusory mechanism. This is not the case when mental images are recalled and they

can clearly be influenced by external factors as shown by research showing how verbal information given

to subjects who were asked to scan mental maps in terms of distance effected their performance of the

scanning task (see Goldston et al., 1985; Reed, Hock & Lockhead, 1983 as cited in Thomson, 2010).

Kosslyn (1973) makes an interesting statement when he appears to align his thoughts closely

with the principles of the conceptual-propositional position. He uses a computer graphics metaphor to

liken the process of constructing a mental image to that of a pictorial image generated on a cathode-ray

tube by a computer program and comments:

“The underlying “deep” structure is abstract and not experienced directly, whereas the image
itself seems pictorial in nature. The psychological to cathode ray tube does not display
pictures as such, but rather supports internal representations similar to those that arise
when pictures are perceived” (Kosslyn, 1973 p. 342).

This “deep structure” reference is notable in light of subsequent arguments made by Anderson (1979)

where he defends his previous argument (1978) asserting that both the functional-equivalency and the

conceptual-propositional points of view could not even be discriminated between and that neither position

was entirely convincing, a point reiterated by Palmer (1978). This highlights how even the most ardent

supporter of a particular view of mental representation of imagery contest whether or not the question

can be ultimately solved. Neurological imaging can however shed some light on questions surrounding

the topic.

The Neurological Evidence

The goal of neurological investigation into mental imagery and their function has been to map

areas of relative increased blood flow in the brain as it engages in visual tasks, both real and imagined

(Wylie & McMahon, 2010). There is no direct neurological evidence supporting the conceptual-
propositional argument for mental imaging per se. Some neurological studies are primarily concerned

with providing evidence of a dissociative nature of deficits in visual perception and mental imagery which

could be said to weaken the arguments pertaining to a sharing of the major neural pathways involved in

visual perception and representation. This research stresses the fact that in patients who have sustained

damage to areas of the brain that are known to be heavily involved in visual perception, they display no

disruption to their mental imaging capabilities (Bartolomeo et al, 1997, Behrmann, Moscovitch &

Winocur, 1994).

Many neurological studies have however indicated is that both visual mental imagery and

perceptive visual process share many specific subsystems in within the visual cortex, specifically

according to Kosslyn & Thompson (2000) the Brodmann area 17 or primary visual system also known as

the V1 area. Kosslyn, Thompson & Alpert (1997) showed in several studies, using different brain

scanning techniques that these areas of the brain are utilised during both visual perception and during

the mental representation process. Kosslyn et al (1995) also used the results from a positron emission

tomography scanning experiment to rebuff the conceptual-propositional position and buttress his earlier

arguments for pictorially driven representations of mental imagery. The reasoning for this position is

based on observed neural activation around the V1 area of the visual cortex. In a control condition

subjects were asked to listen passively to the names of objects and in the test condition, they were asked

to build mental representations of objects of different sizes. Once the activation patterns of both

processes were subtracted from each other a residual pattern remained. This sharing of neural machinery

in both the perceptive and imagined visual process was held by Kosslyn to demonstrate evidence for the

pictorial representation of images from memory (Kosslyn, Thompson & Alpert 1995). Most importantly

from their point of view was the assertion that the areas dealing with visual function are neurologically

topographically organised (Kosslyn, Thompson & Kim, 1993). Hence, deficits in perceptive and

representational function could be easier to associate when the areas responsible for these functions are

physically close to each other in the brain. An argument could be made however that when mental

images are constructed in the brain the presence of pictorial images is simply a by-product of the

process, or epiphenomenal. However, as Kosslyn & Thompson (2000) argue, there is neurological

evidence to show that damage to visual areas of the brain which is topographically organised also impairs

the ability to build mental images.

The Future of the Debate

From a cognitive neurological perspective the ambition is to directly match certain behaviours and

psychological phenomena, including mental imaging. Recent evidence has pointed to at least two distinct

neural circuits that deal with separate aspects in mental representation. It is proposed that the where

and what what of mental images are processed by the dorsal premotor cortex (Cisek & Kalaska, 2004)

and the ventral temporal areas (Gauthier, Hayward & Tarr, 2002) respectively. It seems that in terms of

imaging, neurology will concentrate on the direct matching approach in order to attempt to answer

questions regarding the topography of visual activity in the brain: both perceptual and image-based (see

Kosslyn, 2003).

From the cognitive psychology perspective, implications of the outcome of the conceptual-

propositional versus functional-equivalency debate are deep and far reaching. The work to build cognitive

models will continue in conjunction with neurological imaging assessments, however, as a purely

cognitive debate the conceptual-propositional versus functional-equivalency arena seems to be at a point

of stagnation. As Pylyshyn (2003) states

“...every attempt to build a causal cognitive theory based on subjective experience has been
mired in contradictions. The case of mental imagery, as expounded by picture theorists, has
been the most striking contemporary example of this phenomenological snare” (p. 112).

Kosslyn, Ganis and Thompson (2003) do not seem any more optimistic of finding a resolution to the

debate as they state:

“The closing parts of Pylyshyn's article offer a clear choice. One can attempt to work out a
scientific theory, which guides empirical research and leads to new discoveries (as the
depictive theory of visual images has), or one can argue that such efforts are a dead end and
speculate that imagery is an ineffable phenomenon that cannot be illuminated by scientific
research. We leave the choice up to the reader” (p. 111).

An approach which involves both the neuropsychological and cognitive disciplines seems most likely to

provide answers in the future, a point highlighted by recent research by Kosslyn & Thompson (2003).

They conducted a major meta-analysis of the neuroimaging research dealing with visual mental imagery

and activation of the early visual cortex i.e. Brodman's Area 17. Their reason for conducting this study

was to investigate the discrepancies between the studies which found evidence for early activation while

a significant number did not. This was deemed particularly important by Kosslyn and Thompson because

area 17 is one of the first cerebral components to receive input from the eyes and so its behaviour and

function is particularly pertinent to the mental imagery debate (Kosslyn & Thompson, 2003). The analysis
was conducted from 3 theoretical perspectives and the neuroimaging data related to each: 1) Perceptual

Anticipation Theory (the current moniker for image-based theory), 2) Propositional theory and 3)

Methodological Factor Theory (an extreme position on the image-based position that holds activation is

only contingent on the act of visualisation alone. The results of 44 neuroimaging results from an

assortment of fMRI, PET and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) studies on the

activation of early visual cortex during visual mental imagery were then inspected and coded according to

a relevant set of criteria. The following conclusion was drawn and seems to indicate the area that will be

of interest to those investigating mental imagery into the future,

“In short, we have good evidence that early visual cortex plays a functional role in at least
some tasks that require visual mental imagery.” (Kosslyn & Thompson, 2003 p. 744).
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