ABSTRACT

Chapter 4 looks at mental representations or how knowledge is represented and manipulated in the human mind. How do people mentally visualize an object and how do they manipulate a mental image of the object in their minds? What is a mental representation of the environment like and how is it stored in the mind? How does the stored knowledge direct people’s behavior and thinking? The chapter considers these questions through the concepts of mental rotation, schemas, spatial metaphors, hierarchical structure, and orientation dependence. Then the chapter looks at inconsistencies in the geometry of cognitive maps and discusses categorical and numerical coding of spatial relations.