ABSTRACT
Since the earliest days of scientific psychology, the value of mental imagery in comprehension, memory, and reasoning has been recognised and studied. The massive amount of data collected in this domain of research has revealed that the human mind is often inclined toward the most direct contact possible with the objects of its focus, using mental images in addition to and sometimes instead of indirect or more remote contact based on symbolic, language-like representational systems. In scientific thinking, as in every other form of thinking, imagery is considered an irreplaceable tool, which efficiently supplements more abstract forms of reasoning (Denis, Logie, Cornoldi, de Vega, & Engelkamp, 2001; Shepard, 1988).
