The article by Kosslyn, Ball, and Reiser presents four experiments that investigate the spatial information preserved in visual images during scanning. The experiments demonstrate that scanning time increases with the distance between the initial focus point and the target, even when the same number of intervening items are present. Additionally, subjectively larger images require more time to scan than smaller ones. The authors argue that these findings support the idea that images preserve metric spatial information, similar to how physical pictures do. They also address previous studies, such as Lea's (1975), which did not find systematic effects of distance on scanning times, suggesting that these earlier results may have been due to subjects not using their images for decision-making. The experiments further show that scanning time increases linearly with distance, even when subjects are instructed to "zoom in" on a specific part of the image. Overall, the results indicate that visual mental images are quasi-pictorial entities that can be processed and that they embody information about actual interval spatial extents.The article by Kosslyn, Ball, and Reiser presents four experiments that investigate the spatial information preserved in visual images during scanning. The experiments demonstrate that scanning time increases with the distance between the initial focus point and the target, even when the same number of intervening items are present. Additionally, subjectively larger images require more time to scan than smaller ones. The authors argue that these findings support the idea that images preserve metric spatial information, similar to how physical pictures do. They also address previous studies, such as Lea's (1975), which did not find systematic effects of distance on scanning times, suggesting that these earlier results may have been due to subjects not using their images for decision-making. The experiments further show that scanning time increases linearly with distance, even when subjects are instructed to "zoom in" on a specific part of the image. Overall, the results indicate that visual mental images are quasi-pictorial entities that can be processed and that they embody information about actual interval spatial extents.