More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/mental-imagery.
In the Early Modern period many philosophers took ideas to be mental images of the objects they stood for. During the 20th century, that notion fell into considerable disrepute. Yet recent cognitive science has revived the idea that at least some of our mental representations are highly imagistic in character, not just mental representations tied to vision and perception generally. Join John, Ken, and noted cognitive psychologist Lera Boroditsky of Stanford University to explore the imagistic nature of mental representations.