Abstract
Although much research points to the commonalities between imaging and perceiving, there are also large differences between these activities. Perception begins with a distal stimulus; thus, it is possible to ask whether a percept corresponds to its stimulus, implying the possibility of nonveridicality or of ambiguity. In contrast, images come into being accompanied by an understanding of what the image represents; hence, images cannot be misunderstood, and they represent what the imaginer intended. Some recent results showing illusions in imagery appear to undermine these claims, but we argue that these data are potentially flawed. We report results that are consistent with these claims about the nature of images and the relation between imagery and perception.
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This research was supported by funds from the New School for Social Research. We wish to thank Peter Monk for his discussion of the analysis.
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Reisberg, D., Morris, A. Images contain what the imager put there: A nonreplication of illusions in imagery. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 23, 493–496 (1985). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329863
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329863