Object imagery and object identification: object imagers are better at identifying spatially-filtered visual objects

Cogn Process. 2008 May;9(2):137-43. doi: 10.1007/s10339-008-0203-5. Epub 2008 Jan 24.

Abstract

Object imagery refers to the ability to construct pictorial images of objects. Individuals with high object imagery (high-OI) produce more vivid mental images than individuals with low object imagery (low-OI), and they encode and process both mental images and visual stimuli in a more global and holistic way. In the present study, we investigated whether and how level of object imagery may affect the way in which individuals identify visual objects. High-OI and low-OI participants were asked to perform a visual identification task with spatially-filtered pictures of real objects. Each picture was presented at nine levels of filtering, starting from the most blurred (level 1: only low spatial frequencies--global configuration) and gradually adding high spatial frequencies up to the complete version (level 9: global configuration plus local and internal details). Our data showed that high-OI participants identified stimuli at a lower level of filtering than participants with low-OI, indicating that they were better able than low-OI participants to identify visual objects at lower spatial frequencies. Implications of the results and future developments are discussed.

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Analysis of Variance
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Identification, Psychological*
  • Imagination / physiology*
  • Male
  • Pattern Recognition, Visual
  • Psychophysics
  • Space Perception / physiology*
  • Statistics, Nonparametric
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Vision, Ocular / physiology*