Chapter 12 Imaging objects, routines, and locations

Publisher Summary This chapter aims to extend the image generation method to a new range of concepts and, in particular, to select concepts which other research has suggested might be selectively associated with autobiographical knowledge. The chapter presents two experiments. Experiment 1 examines the knowledge drawn upon when people image common routines such as making a cup of tea, and Experiment 2 examines images of common locations such as an airport. In both these experiments, taxonomic concepts are employed as baseline concepts and are expected to show a heterogeneous knowledge base in terms of image content Routines and locations are, however, expected to be dominated by autobiographical knowledge. One further manipulation employed in the present experiments is that the level of abstraction of the to-be-imaged concepts is systematically varied. In Experiment 1, three levels of abstraction are employed and concepts comprise equally superordinate, basic level concepts. In Experiment 2, the concepts comprise equally basic level concepts, subordinates, and attributes of locations and objects.