Relationship Between Visual Mental Imagery And Visual Working Memory Is Influenced By Information Source Rather Than Information Type

Different studies revealed inconsistent conclusions on the relationship between visual mental imagery(MI)and visual working memory(WM).Some researchers showed that visual mental image was moderately related to visual working memory,but the others found that they were irrelevant.Analyzing the results,it was found that the information source may be the major reason for this result,and the information type may not have impact on it.Based on this,the two studies in this paper tried to explore two issues:(1)When information comes from the same type,weather the difference between information sources will affect the relationship between MI and WM?(2)When information comes from the same source,weather the difference between information types will affect the relationship between MI and WM?Study 1 contained two experiments,experiment 1 discussed the relationship between object MI and object WM from different information sources;experiment 2 discussed the relationship between spatial MI and spatial WM from different information sources.Study 2 also contained two experiments,experiment 3 discussed the relationship between object MI and spatial WM that came from perception;experiment 4 discussed the relationship between spatial MI and object WM that were derived from long-term memory.The results showed that:(1)When the information sources were different,there was no significant correlation between MI and WM,even though they were derived from the same type(experiment 1 and experiment 2),which means the information source have a decisive influence on the relationship between MI and WM.(2)When the information sources were the same,there was still a moderate positive correlation between MI and WM even if the information types were different(experiment 3,r= 0.483,p<.05;experiment 4,r = 0.438,p<.05).It showed that information type may not have a decisive influence on the relationship between MI and WM.This study verifies the validity of the visual mental imagery theory proposed by Kosslyn.It provides relevant behavioral evidence for further exploration of the brain regions activated by MI and WM from different information sources.