Involuntary mental rotation and visuospatial imagery from external control.

The Reflexive Imagery Task (RIT) was developed to investigate the entry into consciousness of involuntary imagery. Subjects are presented with objects and instructed to not think of the names of the objects. Involuntary subvocalizations arise on many trials. RIT effects reveal the capacities of involuntary processing. These cognitions do not require symbol manipulation. Can mental rotation and visuospatial imagery, too, arise in this involuntary manner? In the mental rotation task, subjects were first taught to mentally rotate two-dimensional objects. Subjects were then instructed to not mentally rotate objects. In the chess task, subjects were taught how to move in their minds objects in specified ways, much as one could imagine how chess pieces move on a chessboard. Subjects were then instructed to not have such visuospatial imagery. For both tasks, involuntary imagery occurred on a substantial proportion of trials, revealing that symbol manipulation can be influenced involuntarily through external control.

Externally controlled involuntary cognitions and their relations with other representations in consciousness.

Percepts and action-related urges often enter consciousness insuppressibly. The Reflexive Imagery Task (RIT) was developed to investigate how high-level cognitions (e.g., subvocalizations), too, can enter consciousness in this manner. Limitations of the paradigm include (a) that no data have confirmed subjects' introspections about the involuntary subvocalizations, and (b) that, in everyday life, adaptive responses to involuntary cognitions often depend on the nature of the other contents in consciousness. To address a and b, we developed an RIT in which subjects were presented with visual objects and instructed to not think of the object names. If a subvocalization did arise, however, subjects responded motorically only if the subvocalization rhymed with a word held in memory and if there was a visual "go" cue. Subjects successfully (on 0.83 of the trials) emitted this complex, "multi-determined" response, which provides evidence for the occurrence of the involuntary subvocalizations and illuminates the function of consciousness.