On the ontological status of visual mental images
Stephen M. Kosslyn · 1978
There has long been considerable controversy over the ontological status of mental images. Most recently, members of the A.I. community have argued for the sufficiency of "propositional representation " and have resisted the notion that other sorts of representations are functional in the human mind. The purpose of this paper is to review what I take to be the best evidence that images are distinct functional representations in human memory. Before reviewing these data, however, I offer a preliminary definition of what I mean by a "visual mental