In Jeanne Bamberger's (1991) instructive case study on Jeff's learning, Bamberger observed and systematically ordered altering states of mental representations. In this study, Bamberger introduced and discussed a differentiated perspective on various forms of representation. In addressing the processing of music in the mind, mental representations can refer specifically to neural correlates of ...

Abstract Mental rotation is a hypothesized imagery process that has inspired controversy regarding the substrate of human spatial reasoning. Two central questions about mental rotation remain: Does mental rotation depend on analog spatial representations, and does mental rotation depend on motor simulation? A review and meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies help answer these questions. Mental r...

A central challenge in cognitive science is to measure and quantify the mental representations humans develop – in other words, to ‘read’ subject’s minds. In order to eliminate potential biases in reporting mental contents due to verbal elaboration, subjects’ responses in experiments are often limited to binary decisions or discrete choices that do not require conscious reflection upon their me...

A central challenge in cognitive science is to measure and quantify the mental representations humans develop – in other words, to ‘read’ subject’s minds. In order to eliminate potential biases in reporting mental contents due to verbal elaboration, subjects’ responses in experiments are often limited to binary decisions or discrete choices that do not require conscious reflection upon their me...

Investigations of the psychological representation for musical meter provided evidence for an internalized hierarchy from 3 sources: frequency distributions in musical compositions, goodness-of-fit judgments of temporal patterns in metrical contexts, and memory confusions in discrimination judgments. The frequency with which musical events occurred in different temporal locations differentiates...

How do people think about social status? We investigated the nature of social status and number representations using a semantic distance latency test. In Study 1, 21 college students compared words connoting different social status as well as numbers, which served as a control task. Participants were faster at comparing occupations and numbers that were semantically farther apart relative to t...

The circumplex structure derived from similarity ratings of affect words is assumed to be a conceptual representation of affect anchored in semantic knowledge. Recently, it been suggested that this structure is not based on semantic knowledge at all, but may instead reflect a type of episodic knowledge: The degree to which emotions covary in everyday life. In two experience-sampling studies, we...

ion of Mental Representations: Theoretical Considerations and N eu roscientific Evidence Kalina Christoff and Kamyar Keramatian The ability to conceive of highly abstract concepts is a fundamental feature of human cognition. Using abstract mental representations, we can organize perceptions garnered from disparate experiences, develop novel solutions to problems we encounter, and predict future...

Markman and Dietrich1 recently recommended extending our understanding of representation to incorporate insights from some “alternative” theories of cognition: perceptual symbol systems, situated action, embodied cognition, and dynamical systems. In particular, they suggest that allowances be made for new types of representation which had been previously under-emphasized in cognitive science. T...

This short paper presents continued work on a design tool presented at CHI '97 [7] and further described in WP99-01 and [8, 9]. WayMaker is a tool for mapping the layouts and structural features of graphical virtual environments. The tool is based on principles of mental mapping familiar to urban designers and planners. Here we describe usage sessions with practitioners in these disciplines. Th...