Perky's experiment, in which participants were asked to "project" visual images of common objects onto a screen, showed that
A) imagery and perception are two different phenomena.
B) imagery and perception can interact with one another.
C) there are large individual differences in people's ability to create visual images.
D) creating a visual image can interfere with a perceptual judgment task.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Perky's experiment demonstrated that imagery and perception can interact with one another. Participants' visual imagery of common objects influenced their ability to notice those objects when they were actually presented on a screen. This suggests that mental imagery processes and perceptual processes share some neural mechanisms and can interact with each other. The experiment did not directly address option A (the distinction between imagery and perception), but it did provide evidence supporting option B. There were likely individual differences in participants' abilities to create visual images, but this was not the main focus of the experiment (so option C is less directly relevant). Although the experiment did involve both visual imagery and perceptual judgment tasks, it showed that participants' visual imagery interfered with their ability to perceive objects, rather than vice versa (so option D is not accurate).

Perky's Experiment, in Which Participants Were Asked to "Project" Visual