中文摘要：

采用标准化的视觉表象产生任务,以经过系统训练以及三个不同年龄阶段被试为研究对象来研究视觉表象产生加工时所表现出的可塑性水平。研究结果表明,视觉表象产生加工水平会因外界系统训练而发生功能增强的练习效应,也表现出随着个体的发展所呈现出的年龄效应,年幼儿童还不能产生空间表征,9岁左右可能是儿童类别表象产生能力发展的一个重要时期,也是个体视觉表象产生加工能力可塑性最高的时期。说明由于受大脑神经细胞活动特性改变的影响,视觉表象产生能力具有相对较高的可塑性和易变性特点。

英文摘要：

Visual mental image generation had been defined as the process during which long-term memory knowledge of the visual appearance of objects or scenes is used to create a short-term percept-like image.It is a complex and multi-componential cognitive process,and a most basic proceas in visual mental image processs.A systematic research on it will help us not only deeply understand the law of human visual mental image processing,but also mast effectively exame and evaluate visual spatial cognition functional level in practice.Does functional plasticity really exist in visual mental image generation process？ What roles do both hemispheres play in image generation process？ All these questions need to be explored again. The present study adopted a standardized image generation task to examine the cognitive plasticity in the visual image generating proceas.Two experiments were conducted to test the processing level of image generating respectively in systematically trained college students and children of three different age phases.In two experiments,a claasical image generation task was adopted to investigate the cognitive plasticity of simple letter image generation.The subjects were cued to form images within a grid or within a set of four corner brackets;a single X mark was enclosed within each stimulus,and the subjects were to determine whether the X mark would have fallen on an imaged pattern.To ensure that participants mentally generated the target letter,probe location was varied.＂Early＂probes appeared on letter segments that were first produced when the letter was drawn;while＂late＂probes appeared on later produced segments.The reaction time（measured from the end of the question to the onset of the participants＇ response） and error rates were recorded and analyzed.The aim of these experiments was to clarify whether functional plasticity really existed in visual mental image generation process. We obtained some evidence by having the subjects memorize letters in grids（which were easily encoded