The children are using 'elementary mental functions', the adults are not.' Vygotsky used eidetic imagery himself as he did have a photographic memory.

(Literate) adults use different strategy: we try and create a verbal list of the objects, and rehearse this to remember what was there.

When you ask them to recall the objects they've looked at, they will often close their eyes, and you will see their eyes moving behind their eye-lids, as though they are looking at the image they have retained to see what objects are in which position.

They take a kind of 'mental snapshot' of the collection of items. They appear to use eidetic imagery to keep track of things. ' Children under about 7 years of age seem to approach this task differently from adults in our culture.NOTES: A little more information on Eidetic Imagery. Instead it stays constant and can be scanned. Thirdly, the image, in the visual modality, does not move with the eyes.Secondly, the image may occur immediately after the experience or days, months or years later.First, the experience from which it stems may last for a long time and may not end abruptly, although it can be the other way.It differs, however, in a number of important ways. You then concentrate on the after image you experience.Įidetic Imagery: This is similar to after imagery in that it originates as a result intense stimulation and aids the perceptual process. One technique for developing after imagery is called 'flashing.' This involves looking at something bright for a few seconds and then quickly closing your eyes.Adults, on the other hand, typically try to remember them verbally by name.For example, if they have to recall something like the row of patters shown below, they simply look at it and then when the patters are removed they still see the after image.The same will be true for Eidetic Imagery as we shall see. The prolongation of the experience is thought to help the their perceptual processes by giving them more time to decode the input. Children generally have stronger after imagery than adults.This after image may be intense, may last for seconds and will move as we shift our gaze. Almost everyone who has had a flash picture taken, has experienced the after image of the flash bulb.It is an involuntary process that comes on the heels of intense stimulation which is abruptly halted. They are:Īfter Imagery: This is probably the most concrete of the imagery experiences. Within this broad definition of imagery there are four different kinds resulting from different processes, no doubt.

Hence, the consequence of images are different than those of percepts based on reality.If I raise my finger every time I hear the tone, that wasnÅt there, the consequence is a negative instead of a positive hearing report.Yet I am aware of its presence, just like a percept. The tone, then originates from within my head.In those instances where I am imaging a tone, I experience it in the absence of a stimulus.When I take a hearing test, for example, and the tones are at threshold, I cannot often tell whether I am imagining the tone or whether there really is one.

We see, hear, smell and feel things, usually somewhat fuzzily, but sometimes so powerfully and clearly that it is impossible to distinguish them from reality.It is a quasi-perceptual because its structure in our consciousness is similar to that of a percept.

Imagery is a quasi-perceptual experience of which we are aware, but which occurs in the absence of an external stimulus and which has different consequences than an external stimulus.

We need to compare it to the bonds of other objects.

Once we have abstracted a bond, we need to be able to do something more than just remember it.

Eidetic image definition