WHY MENTAL IMAGES ARE EFFECTIVE

 

Imaginary exercise can activate the same circuits as real experience.

Magitating our service in tennis or mentally reviewing the speech that we must deliver could help us to perform more, as has been seen in different studies. However, the whys are unclear. A common theory indicates that mental images activate some of the same neural circuits that participate in real experience. Recent research published in Psychological Science supports this idea.

Scientists at the University of Oslo carried out five experiments to find out whether the eye's pupil adapted to imagined light as it does to real light, in an attempt to verify whether mental visualization can activate nervous processes such as pupil dilation. . They used infrared eye-tracking technology to measure the pupil diameter of the probands as they witnessed images of different brightness, and when they later imagined the figures they had seen, or a sunny sky or a dark room.

In response to imaginary light, the pupils of the probands contracted, on average, 87 percent of what was experienced in real light. In response to imaginary darkness, the pupils dilated to 56 percent of the size they were during true perception. Two other experiments ruled out the possibility that the participants could adjust the diameter of their pupils at will or that they varied in response to mental effort, an action that can cause dilation.

This finding helps to explain why imagination trials can improve our game or speech. The mental image activates and reinforces the same neural circuits - even the subconscious ones that control automatic processes, such as pupillary dilation -that we will need to use when it comes to truth.