Amount awarded: $25,050
According to the standard view, mental imagery plays an indispensable role in working memory. Recent work on aphantasia, a condition characterized as an impairment in mental imagery, appears to challenge this view. According to some studies (Pounder et al., 2022; Keogh et al., 2021), aphantasics perform as well as controls on working memory tasks that purportedly require conscious mental images. However, mental imagery is not a unitary phenomenon (Dance et al., 2021; Palermo et al., 2022). While aphantasics are typically defined as individuals who lack visual imagery for objects, they might be unimpaired in other forms of imagery (e.g., spatial imagery or verbal imagery/inner speech) which could be used to perform certain working memory tasks. We propose to clarify the role of mental imagery in working memory by developing a methodology to dissociate different forms of mental imagery and their specific contributions to working memory tasks. In particular, we will focus on a potential dissociation between visual object imagery and spatial imagery and a similar dissociation between phonetic imagery and verbal imagery.
We will begin by developing and validating a questionnaire that improves upon prior mental imagery questionnaires’ (such as the VVIQ) ability to show the degree to which different imagery types correlate across individuals). We will then recruit a large sample of participants to complete our questionnaire, with the goal of estimating the prevalence and co-occurrence of different imagery types (Aim 1). From these respondents, we will recruit participants that report selective deficits in one imagery subdomain (object, spatial, phonetic, linguistic) to participate in a series of behavioral tasks that allow us to dissociate the contributions object and spatial working memory (Aim 2) or phonetic and linguistic working memory (Aim 3).We will then analyze the correlations between the self-report scores on our questionnaires and performance on our working memory tasks to probe the extent to which conscious mental imagery plays a role in working memory. This project will significantly advance the literature on mental imagery. In addition to improving upon the previous questionnaires probing individual differences in mental imagery experiences, it will show the extent to which varieties of mental imagery dissociate within individuals, and illuminate our understanding of the role of specific imagery types in working memory. Finally, it will provide the necessary groundwork for future phenomenological, behavioral, and neuroscientific research on mental imagery and working memory.
Evelina Fedorenko, PhD. Associate Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Anna Ivanova, PhD. Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Raquel Krempel, PhD. Postdoctoral Scholar, Center for Logic, State University of Campinas, Brazil
Douglas Wadle, PhD. Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Kansas
Michael Payton, PhD Candidate, Department of Psychology, University of Madison-Wisconsin
Wes Skolits, PhD. Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University