28th International Congress of Psychology August 8 ... - U-netSURF

self-efficacy.
3032 Keynote
Chair: Danling Peng, China
Visual mental images in the brain, Stephen M. Kosslyn, Department of Psychology, Harvard
University, USA
Mental images are the furniture of the mind. When we are conscious of our thoughts, we are aware
of images--visual, verbal, tactile, and all the rest. Objects populate the world without; images
populate the world within. Nevertheless, the study of imagery within Western science has a
checkered history. Until very recently, imagery seemed like an utterly private event; something we
could access only through introspection. In this talk I illustrate how behavioral techniques have
allowed us publicly to validate introspections by tracking the observable footprints of imagery,
and also illustrate how neuroimaging has allowed us to observe the neural levers and pistons that
power imagery. I will argue that imagery is a distinct form of internal representation, qualitatively
unlike language, which obeys its own principles.
3033 Keynote
Chair: Saths Cooper, South Africa
Culture and psychology: Recent insights, Fons van de Vijver, Tilburg University, The
Netherlands
An overview of the main paradigms and findings in the cross-cultural psychological literature is
presented. Special emphasis is given to two related themes. The first is the relationship between
individual- and culture-level phenomena, such as the manifestations of individualism and
collectivism at both levels. The second is the country-level study of psychological phenomena
such as personality traits at. It is argued that modern conceptualizations in cross-cultural
psychology and methodological innovations may be able to reduce the gap between individual and
culture.
3034 Keynote
Chair: Kan Zhang, China
The history and current status of international psychology, Raymond Fowler, American
Psychological Association, USA
Psychology began as an international discipline. International meetings occurred before national
societies existed, and students moved freely across international borders to advance their
education in psychology. From the time of World War I until several decades after World War II,
much of the world was recovering from war and its aftermath, and international advances in
psychology decreased greatly. In the past two decades, psychology has made substantial advances
in most of the countries of the world, and there has been a resurgence of interest in international
psychology, including participation in international meetings.
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