When we listen to the radio, or when we read a book, we always picture in our minds what is happening. This phenomena of experiencing senses in your imagination can happen with all the other senses, too. Some psychologists believe that mental images play a very important role in thinking. Through investigation, they have determined that mental images maintain most of the characteristics of the real object they are representing. A result of this is the fact than they can easily be moved around and manipulated in our mind.
People make good use of mental images.
We could not learn how to drive if we did not have a mental image of the city or setting, in which we are driving, nor could we do many other complex operations. Additionally, our memories are made much richer by mental images, because they allow us to retain so much more.