Conclusión Canvas y posibles siguientes pasos

Having proposed (Chapters 3 and 4) that imagination is a vital and permeating aspect of all of our thinking, particularly when defined to include as its most basic form

‘imaging’, it is appropriate to undertake a brief exploration of the psychological nature of mental images, relating these explicitly to art, in order to develop theory which supports learning based on this relationship.

Some (Paivio, 1973, Kosslyn et al 2010) but not all, (Pylshlyn, 1973, 1981) would argue that the basic unit of imagination is the ‘mental image’, the nature and use of which has been the subject of ‘the imagery debate’ (Tye, 1991). For Kosslyn et al.:

‘a mental image occurs when a representation of the type created during the initial phases of perception is present but the stimulus is not actually being perceived; such representations preserve the perceptible properties of the stimulus and ultimately give rise to the subjective experience of perception.’ (2006, p.4)

The parameters of this thesis limit the extensive capacity required to enter into what has become ‘the imagery debate’ (Kosslyn et al, 2006, p.6, see also: Moulton and

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Kosslyn, 2009, Thomas, 1997, Cornoldi et al, 1996) and it suffices here to acknowledge the conflict of ideas around whether mental images are a distinct phenomenon which serve to ‘depict’ (Kosslyn et al, 2006, p.6) or represent ideas or experiences, as opposed to whether mental representations are ‘more accurately referred to as symbolic descriptions than images in the usual sense.’ (Pylyshn, 1973 in Kosslyn et al 2006, p.6). Shepard and Metzler’s research into the mental rotation of three-dimensional images can be seen as evidence of an ‘analogue’ model of mental imagery (Shepard and Metzler, 2003) concurrent with Kosslyn’s view in which

‘… mental images are “quasi-pictorial” representations, in the sense that they preserve the spatial or topological properties of the physical objects being represented... mental images are generated in the visual buffer...and can be transformed, inspected, or manipulated, analogously to the physical manipulation of the objects they represent.’ (Kozhevnikov, 2008, p.2132)

Relating these theories to personal experiences, the analogue model makes sense to me as being the likely, or most prominent mode of mental imagery, reflecting our lived experience in its dynamic malleability rather than being a catalogue of ‘frozen’

instances of experience, (although I would expect this to differ somewhat across individuals and in different kinds of thought). An analogue model enables us to explore cognitively as we would explore sensually in the material world. The sensory is not arbitrary and the ‘real’ or ‘physical’ nature of a mental image which works in the same way leaves it open to numerous possibilities in the way that we choose to interpret or apply it. Our mental imagery is not symbolically static and one dimensional but is complex and naturalistic, enabling us to build new thoughts and meanings. It relates to the bodily or sensory origin of our cognition, as distrusted by Plato and Descartes, which led also to a distrust of art (see Ch.3). By extension, we might argue that this implies increased value for the role of visual art in supporting our thinking, considering its sensory origins and outputs and the fact that our cognitive activity depends on sensory experience which has historically led to its relegation.

Like any kind of thinking with mental images, art depends on and makes explicit an

‘analogue’ exploration based on sensed experience, both in production and in viewing but perhaps this activity of image manipulation is the essential business and nature of art, more explicit and more ‘free’ than in other subject areas. (Returning to Ch. 1, even

‘representation’ in art is really re-presentation, seldom a direct ‘replica’ made without

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recourse to choice and decision in portrayal or concept and therefore working in the same way as an analogue model of mental imagery). We can consider art and art processes as a visualised and more concentrated model of the way that we think with mental imagery on an everyday basis, particularly in circumstances where meanings are not already ‘fixed’ as images in their own right (for example, in the case of scientific generalisations). In this way art might be seen as a dynamic and focused ‘exercise’

for our minds, modelling important aspects of our thinking more generally and allowing us to try this out in a discrete space. In this case, some of arts value for learning would depend on the prominence of the visual or analogue model of mental imagery within our thinking. How much of our thought does imagery occupy and how important is it in practice?

In Paivio’s ‘Dual Coding’ model

‘Imagery and verbal processes function as parallel or sequential systems in a static-dynamic relationship with imagery as the more dynamic of the two processes, capable of swift and symbolic transformation into language.’

(Khatena, 1984, p.15)

Paivio evidences the superiority of imagery over ‘verbal coding’ in his research on free recall, concluding that

‘ ...the usual superiority of pictures in free recall is best explained by dual encoding, or a combination of image superiority and dual coding, both of which are ordinarily favoured when items are presented as pictures.’

(Paivio, 1973, p.176)

We organise verbally coded information sequentially, whereas we chunk or cluster images in parallel to each other, possibly because ‘…pictured objects are simply more available for recall because of higher familiarity or frequency...or their memory images somehow take up less “storage space”.’ (1973, p.201). Whatever the reason, we can assume that this ‘clustering’ enables immediacy and flexibility in the way that we associate mental images with each other in the process of forming meaning. In Paivio’s theory ‘imagery provides the primary cognitive medium for representing end states (goal objects, situations, behavioural outcomes) and “trying out” different behaviours that might achieve those ends.’ (Kaufman in Sadoski, 1992, p.272). These

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are behaviours which we might readily describe as ‘imaginative’, bringing to mind what is not (yet) present and are akin to creative or even fantastical imagination on our scale.

In combination, all of this suggests that thinking with imagery (as opposed to using

‘verbal coding’ in Paivio’s model), provides advantages in terms of cognitive manipulation and creativity. Since we have identified a similarity between the

‘mechanics’ of mental images and our sensory experiences of images, we might suppose that mental images and, by functioning in the same way; art images, provide key cognitive components for use in creating new meanings. Within a dual coding model, it is imagery as opposed to verbal coding which enables originality so we can assume that both mental and artistic imagery are powerful, transformative aspects of cognition. If we accept that metacognition operates via the same processes as cognition but at a ‘meta’ level, we can say also that mental and artistic imagery play this transformative role in metacognition too. Surely it is also imagery that enables us to jump from cognition to metacognition, providing the flexibility of thought which enables us to have an overview. This is borne out in the model we arrived at in Chapter 4, included again here (figure 5.2).

Figure 5.2 Model of imagination leading to and within metacognition

We can start to see art works as visualised models of the imagery-rich processes which Paivio describes, produced via a skilful exploitation of the properties of mental images in order to cohere meanings which may be conveyed to those experiencing them. The art then generates an image-based cognitive process in the mind of the viewer as they draw on the new sensory imagery (the art) and cohere this with their existing mental

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imagery in order to arrive at an understanding of the work. Whether it is intended by the artist or not, art is likely to ‘open’ up and influence thought processes if it is of sufficient interest to provoke consideration by the viewer.

Kosslyn and Paivio’s theories both emphasise the prominence of analogue-style imagery and its advantages for manipulation, storage, retrieval and creative cognition.

While they bring us closer to an understanding of how imagination encapsulates and operates with mental imagery, without specific theories which relate imagery and art, we can only make a logical speculation that the prominence of our use of imagery and preference for the visual in recall implies that art has a special role in supporting our use of mental imagery within our learning. Arnheim attempts to bridge a gap between

‘mental image’ and ‘art image’. He puts it simply, perhaps too simply: ‘Thinking calls for images, and images contain thought, therefore, the visual arts are a homeground of visual thinking.’ (Arnheim, 1969, p.254). Echoing the discussion above, he discusses the malleability and interpretability of mental imagery, exploring the nature of the images themselves and how this accommodates creative thinking. Like Kosslyn, he dismisses the idea that our creativity is limited to combining pre-perceived mental images of the outer world.

‘It is as though, for the purpose of imagery, a person can call on memory traces the way he [or she] calls on stimulus material in direct perception...the thinker can focus on what is relevant and dismiss from visibility what is not.’

(Arnheim, 1969, p.105)

For Arnheim, the characteristic incompleteness, fuzziness or generality of mental images can be described metaphorically as being akin to Impressionism since

‘…the Impressionist offered an approximation, a few strokes, which were not intended to create the illusion of the fully duplicated figure or tree.

Rather, in order to serve as the stimulus for the intended effect, the reduced pattern of strokes was to be perceived as such.’ (Arnheim, 1969, p.108)

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So our mental images might have a similar impact on us as this Monet.

Figure 5.3 Water-lilies, Setting Sun. Claude Monet, 1907 http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk

While succinctly illustrating the attributes of the psychological descriptions of mental imagery discussed above, this use of an art-historic metaphor is thought provoking if adapted and re-applied as a metaphor of Contemporary Art. While an impressionist concept of mental images leaves space for us to complete, manipulate and make something new with those images, a metaphoric application of the ‘style’ and characteristics of contemporary art provides an interpretive space which is more psychologically explicit (as we might expect in the twenty-first century) and concerned more directly with concept and meaning. Art, as a cultural activity, has moved along to accommodate, interrogate and push the boundaries of a psychologically informed, social ontology. This emphasis provides a more direct route towards exploring our cognition and metacognition within and through art. The process of making or viewing consciously acknowledges, reflects and supports exploration of the conceptual subject matter and pshychology-influenced ontology in hand. Within this metaphor, Contemporary Art is deliberate in providing us with psychological space, reflecting our use of mental imagery more literally than Arnheim’s ‘Impressionist’ metaphor, which remains strong in providing an aesthetic for the ‘space’ available. The model of mental imagery conjured up by the metaphor of ‘Impressionism’ facilitates the (metaphorically speaking) ‘spatial’ dimensions or ‘form’ of more conceptual concerns, just as some might argue technique and materials ‘carry’ the concepts which are largely the

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intentions of Contemporary Art. If we apply ‘Contemporary Art’, rather than Impressionism, as a metaphor for mental imagery, we see mental imagery as a means of cohering and expressing concepts and regard its inherent malleability, or

‘Impressionistic’ ‘form’ as what enables this end. We see what it’s for and how it achieves this. We use mental imagery and visual art to cohere meaning and they help us to do this by being ‘fuzzy’. In both the Monet image (5.3), above and the more contemporary and conceptual Eliasson image, below (5.4), the visual subject matter involves the sun.

Figure 5.4 The Weather Project, Olafur Eliasson, 2003-2004 http://www.tate.org.uk

The more minimal Eliasson piece is designed in such a way as to interfere directly with our sensory experience by changing our sensory experience of our environment, making us think by carefully suggesting an evocative, sun-like symbol, with obvious reference points but with plenty of ‘space’ for us to contemplate and complete concepts. While we do not know if he has verbalised this or if he intended to express it, the artist seems to understand how experience and mental imagery function and the impact of his art work seems to consciously depend on an understanding of cognition.

This is an example of how mental imagery is like contemporary art and how contemporary art is like mental imagery. The closeness might suggest that contemporary art is more cognitively powerful. On the other hand, the immediacy may be regarded as an antecedent to engaging on a deeper cognitive level, doing more of the work for the viewer by taking us straight into the concept. This is for complex discussion beyond the scope of this thesis.

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Emerging from these metaphoric considerations is a sense that mental imagery and visual art are deeply, perhaps uniquely intertwined experiences. The ways in which we make sense of our own minds will ultimately be reflected in our artistic outputs as examples of ‘crystallised’, socio-cultural cognitions, in Vygotskian terms (Ch.4). We can observe this in art history. Simplistically speaking (I do not suggest smoothness or hierarchical progression), we seem to have shifted from shamanistic approaches to art making in which spiritualism or ‘magic’ was our way of understanding existence into conceptual art-making influenced by (and sometimes as a reaction against), our cultural belief in psychology and science, in which we consciously manipulate mental images, generally understanding this activity as cognitive to some degree (although notions of divine intervention, ‘giftedness’ and spiritual practice still exist). This is further compounded by the highly visual, neoliberal culture in which we exist and are continually subjected to highly sophisticated products of conscious image manipulation (advertisement images) inflicted on our environment by those who can afford to adorn it in this way in order to profit from its impacts on our cognition. The substantial investment into the production of these images suggests that they must ‘work’ on us and therefore so must art images (but towards a different purpose). This makes ‘visual literacy’ (e.g. Messaris, 1994) and art’s place in supporting this, as the manifestation of skilful image manipulation all the more important in order that we can critically confront the mental dialogue which this imposes on us. ‘Representation stabilizes the idea or image in a material and makes possible a dialogue with it.’ (Eisner, 2002, p.6).

Art creates a tangible link between our internal and external worlds by capturing, cohering and re-presenting mental imagery and (to relative individual and social degrees) situating this culturally. In developing and exposing our mental imagery through art, we enable socio-cultural thought which can serve to strengthen our knowledge and understanding at a societal level. Bruner, in his essay ‘Possible Castles’, tells us that:

‘…the humanist deals principally with the world as it changes with the position and stance of the viewer. Science creates a world that has an

“existence” linked to the invariance of things and events…The humanities seek to understand the world as it reflects the requirements of living in it.’

(1986, p.50)

In seeking not to pin understanding down to generalizable truth but to re-present a way of thinking (or to arrive at one through artistic process) by reflecting the attributes of

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the artist’s mental imagery in material form, art is likely to generate further thought rather than to ‘answer’ questions and close down thought processes. The humanities (and therefore art) ‘have as their explicit agenda the cultivation of hypotheses’ (Bruner, 1986, p.52). Art: processes, represents and reflects the malleable and ‘un-fixed’

attributes of mental imagery towards the iterative stimulation of further imaginative thought, enabling us to tackle our lives creatively and on our own terms.