Poetry evokes mental imagery in its readers. But how is mental imagery precisely related to poetry? This article provides a systematic treatment. It clarifies two roles of mental imagery in relation to poetry—as an effect generated by poetry and as an efficient means for understanding and appreciating poetry. The article also relates mental imagery to the discussion on the ‘heresy of paraphrase’. It argues against the orthodox view that the imagistic effects of (...) poetry cannot be captured by prosaic paraphrase, but points to features of poetry that can shape aspects of mental imagery that are liable to be lost in paraphrase. (shrink)

Recent research in psycholinguistics suggests that language processing frequently involves mental imagery. This paper focuses on visual imagery and discusses two issues regarding the processing of polysemous words (i.e. words with multiple related meanings or senses) – co-predication and sense-relatedness. It aims to show how mental imagery can illuminate these two issues.

Historically, mental imagery has been defined as an experiential state - as something necessarily conscious. But most behavioural or neuroimaging experiments on mental imagery - including the most famous ones - don’t actually take the conscious experience of the subject into consideration. Further, recent research highlights that there are very few behavioural or neural differences between conscious and unconscious mental imagery. I argue that treating mental imagery as not necessarily conscious (as potentially (...) unconscious) would bring much needed explanatory unification to mental imagery research. It would also help us to reassess some of the recent aphantasia findings inasmuch as at least some subjects with aphantasia would be best described as having unconscious mental imagery. (shrink)

What is the relationship between perception and mental imagery? I aim to eliminate an answer that I call perceptualism about mental imagery. Strong perceptualism, defended by Bence Nanay, predictive processing theorists, and several others, claims that imagery is a kind of perceptual state. Weak perceptualism, defended by M. G. F. Martin and Matthew Soteriou, claims that mental imagery is a representation of a perceptual state, a view sometimes called The Dependency Thesis. Strong perceptualism (...) is to be rejected since it misclassifies imagery disorders and abnormalities as perceptual disorders and abnormalities. Weak Perceptualism is to be rejected since it gets wrong the aim and accuracy conditions of a whole class of mental imagery–projected mental imagery–and relies on an impoverished concept of perceptual states, ignoring certain of their structural features. Whatever the relationship between perception and imagery, the perceptualist has it wrong. (shrink)

When I am looking at my coffee machine that makes funny noises, this is an instance of multisensory perception – I perceive this event by means of both vision and audition. But very often we only receive sensory stimulation from a multisensory event by means of one sense modality, for example, when I hear the noisy coffee machine in the next room, that is, without seeing it. The aim of this paper is to bring together empirical findings about multimodal perception (...) and empirical findings about (visual, auditory, tactile) mental imagery and argue that on occasions like this, we have multimodal mental imagery: perceptual processing in one sense modality (here: vision) that is triggered by sensory stimulation in another sense modality (here: audition). Multimodal mental imagery is not a rare and obscure phenomenon. The vast majority of what we perceive are multisensory events: events that can be perceived in more than one sense modality – like the noisy coffee machine. And most of the time we are only acquainted with these multisensory events via a subset of the sense modalities involved – all the other aspects of these multisensory events are represented by means of multisensory mental imagery. This means that multisensory mental imagery is a crucial element of almost all instances of everyday perception. (shrink)

The problem of amodal perception is the problem of how we represent features of perceived objects that are occluded or otherwise hidden from us. Bence Nanay (2010) has recently proposed that we amodally perceive an object's occluded features by imaginatively projecting them into the relevant regions of visual egocentric space. In this paper, I argue that amodal perception is not a single, unitary capacity. Drawing appropriate distinctions reveals amodal perception to be characterized not only by mental imagery, as (...) Nanay suggests, but also by genuinely visual representations as well as beliefs. I conclude with some brief remarks on the role of object-directed bodily action in conferring a sense of unseen presence on an object's occluded features. (shrink)

This paper introduces a novel conceptualisation of mental imagery; namely, that is grease for the mind’s gears (MGT). MGT is not just a metaphor. Rather, it describes an important and overlooked higher-order function of mental imagery: that it aids various mental faculties discharge their characteristic functional roles. MGT is motivated by reflection on converging evidence from clinical, experimental and social psychology and solves at least two neglected conceptual puzzles about mental imagery. The first (...) puzzle concerns imagery’s architectural promiscuity; that is, its ability to assist diverse mental faculties and perform many different functions when doing so. The second puzzle concerns how to square imagery’s architectural promiscuity with its psychopathological relevance; that is, its being a maintaining cause, and possibly even a partial constituent, of several psychological disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder. Mental imagery helps and harms human psychology to extreme degrees and this is something that calls for elucidation. MGT says that instead of facing perplexing heterogeneities here, we instead face a significant unity. On this score, MGT is argued to be superior to the currently dominant conception of imagery in the philosophical literature; namely, as a perception-like state of mind. (shrink)

Mental imagery often occurs during testimonial belief transmission: a testifier often episodically remembers or imagines a scene while describing it, while a listener often imagines that scene as it’s described to her. I argue that getting clear on imagery’s psychological roles in testimonial belief transmission has implications for some fundamental issues in the epistemology of testimony. I first appeal to imagery cases to argue against a widespread “internalist” approach to the epistemology of testimony. I then appeal (...) to the same sort of case to argue for an alternative, externalist view. (shrink)

Many philosophers treat mental imagery as a kind of perceptual representation – it is either a perceptual state, or a representation of a perceptual state. In the sciences, writers point to mental imagery by way of a standard gloss – mental imagery is said to be (often, early) perceptual processing not directly caused by sensory stimuli (Kosslyn et al. 1995). Philosophers sometimes adopt this gloss, which I will call the basic view. Bence Nanay endorses (...) it, and appeals to it in a number of places to argue that mental imagery plays various functional or explanatory roles, as well as to argue that some mental phenomena should be seen as forms of mental imagery. In places he goes even further, relying on this view of mental imagery to explain how mental imagery is a unified kind despite heterogeneous appearances, and using this view to support his claim that mental imagery is a natural kind. Nanay’s book – which is a both a useful introduction to the many ways that mental imagery appears in discussions across philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology, as well as an extended argument for the multi-faceted relevance of mental imagery to a range of projects in the philosophy of mind and psychology – thus also serves as a nice test case for whether this basic view of mental imagery is good enough to aid theorizing across philosophy and the sciences. I think not. I will illustrate why by looking at two areas. First, I will discuss Nanay’s argument regarding mental imagery and object files. Second, I will discuss an issue Nanay raises, regarding the relationship between mental and motor imagery. A longer discussion might look to many more areas – as already mentioned, Nanay’s book covers a wide range of mental phenomena – with the same lesson emerging. The nature of mental imagery cannot be fully understood without facing an array of choice points, many of which push us to make commitments beyond the basic view. (shrink)

The paper examines the relationships between the contents of imaginative episodes and the mental images that often play a central role within them. It considers, for example, whether the presence of mental imagery is required for a mental episode to count as an imagining.

I discuss the suggestion that conscious will is an illusion. I take it to mean that there are no conscious decisions. I understand ‘conscious’ as accessible directly and ‘decision’ as the acquisition of an intention. I take the alternative of direct access to be access by interpreting behaviour. I start with a survey of the evidence in support of this suggestion. I argue that the evidence indicates that we are misled by external behaviour into making false positive and false negative (...) judgements about our own decisions. Then I turn to a challenge to this suggestion. What could we interpret in cases when there is no external behaviour? I propose the response that we interpret internal behaviour. We can understand internal behaviour as mental simulation of external behaviour, which can proceed by way of conscious mental imagery. I argue that the proposal has the following advantages. It helps us explain more evidence than we could otherwise. It relies mostly on mechanisms that we already have reason to believe in. And it receives support from the available neurological evidence. I also suggest a way to test the proposal in future empirical research. I conclude by discussing the limitations of the proposal and its implications for the wider debates about the imagination and the will. (shrink)

What is the mental representation that is responsible for implicit bias? What is this representation that mediates between the trigger and the biased behavior? My claim is that this representation is neither a propositional attitude nor a mere association. Rather, it is mental imagery: perceptual processing that is not directly triggered by sensory input. I argue that this view captures the advantages of the two standard accounts without inheriting their disadvantages. Further, this view also explains why manipulating (...) mental imagery is among the most efficient ways of counteracting implicit bias. (shrink)

Mental imagery has often been taken to be equivalent to “sensory imagination”, the perception‐like type of imagination at play when, for example, one visually imagines a flower when none is there, or auditorily imagines a music passage while wearing earplugs. I contend that the equation of mental imagery with sensory imagination stems from a confusion between two senses of mental imagery. In the first sense, mental imagery is used to refer to a (...) psychological attitude, which is perception‐like in nature. In the second sense, mental imagery refers to a mental content, which can be grasped via different attitudes. I will show that failure to acknowledge the distinction between these senses of mental imagery has muddled philosophical discussion. This distinction brings much needed clarity to debates where sensory imagination and mental imagery are invoked, shedding light on issues such as the nature of imagistic mental states, and the representational powers and limits of mental imagery. I will conclude by sketching a general attitudinal account of imagination that does justice to both senses of mental imagery, outlining a promising framework for understanding imagination. (shrink)

Mental imagery is perceptual processing that is not triggered by corresponding sensory stimulation in the relevant sense modality. Temporal mental imagery is perceptual processing that is not triggered by temporally corresponding sensory stimulation in the relevant sense modality. We aim to show that temporal mental imagery plays an important role in explaining a number of diverse mental phenomena, from the thickness of temporal experience and the specious present to episodic memory and postdictive perception.

It has been repeatedly suggested that synesthesia is intricately connected with unusual ways of exercising one’s mental imagery, although it is not always entirely clear what the exact connection is. My aim is to show that all forms of synesthesia are forms of (often very different kinds of) mental imagery and, further, if we consider synesthesia to be a form of mental imagery, we get significant explanatory benefits, especially concerning less central cases of synesthesia (...) where the inducer is not sensory stimulation. (shrink)

Mental imagery (varieties of which are sometimes colloquially refered to as “visualizing,” “seeing in the mind's eye,” “hearing in the head,” “imagining the feel of,” etc.) is quasi-perceptual experience; it resembles perceptual experience, but occurs in the absence of the appropriate external stimuli. It is also generally understood to bear intentionality (i.e., mental images are always images of something or other), and thereby to function as a form of mental representation. Traditionally, visual mental imagery, (...) the most discussed variety, was thought to be caused by the presence of picturelike representations (mental images) in the mind, soul, or brain, but this is no longer universally accepted. (shrink)

When we remember a scene, the scene’s boundaries are wider than the boundaries of the scene we saw. This phenomenon is called boundary extension. The most important philosophical question about boundary extension is whether it is a form of perceptual adjustment or adjustment during memory encoding. The aim of this paper is to propose a third explanatory scheme, according to which the extended boundary of the original scene is represented by means of mental imagery. And given the similarities (...) between perception and mental imagery, the memory system encodes both the part of the scene that is represented perceptually and the part of the scene that is represented by means of mental imagery. (shrink)

It is generally accepted that there is something special about reasoning by using mental images. The question of how it is special, however, has never been satisfactorily spelled out, despite more than thirty years of research in the post-behaviorist tradition. This article considers some of the general motivation for the assumption that entertaining mental images involves inspecting a picture-like object. It sets out a distinction between phenomena attributable to the nature of mind to what is called the cognitive (...) architecture, and ones that are attributable to tacit knowledge used to simulate what would happen in a visual situation. With this distinction in mind, the paper then considers in detail the widely held assumption that in some important sense images are spatially displayed or are depictive, and that examining images uses the same mechanisms that are deployed in visual perception. I argue that the assumption of the spatial or depictive nature of images is only explanatory if taken literally, as a claim about how images are physically instantiated in the brain, and that the literal view fails for a number of empirical reasons – for example, because of the cognitive penetrability of the phenomena cited in its favor. Similarly, while it is arguably the case that imagery and vision involve some of the same mechanisms, this tells us very little about the nature of mental imagery and does not support claims about the pictorial nature of mental images. Finally, I consider whether recent neuroscience evidence clarifies the debate over the nature of mental images. I claim that when such questions as whether images are depictive or spatial are formulated more clearly, the evidence does not provide support for the picture-theory over a symbol-structure theory of mental imagery. Even if all the empirical claims were true, they do not warrant the conclusion that many people have drawn from them: that mental images are depictive or are displayed in some (possibly cortical) space. Such a conclusion is incompatible with what is known about how images function in thought. We are then left with the provisional counterintuitive conclusion that the available evidence does not support rejection of what I call the “null hypothesis”; namely, that reasoning with mental images involves the same form of representation and the same processes as that of reasoning in general, except that the content or subject matter of thoughts experienced as images includes information about how things would look. (shrink)

Traditionally, philosophers have appealed to the phenomenological similarity between visual experience and visual imagery to support the hypothesis that there is significant overlap between the perceptual and imaginative domains. The current evidence, however, is inconclusive: while evidence from transcranial brain stimulation seems to support this conclusion, neurophysiological evidence from brain lesion studies (e.g., from patients with brain lesions resulting in a loss of mental imagery but not a corresponding loss of perception and vice versa) indicates that there (...) are functional and anatomical dissociations between mental imagery and perception. Assuming that the mental imagery and perception do not overlap, at least, to the extent traditionally assumed, then the question arises as to what exactly mental imagery is and whether it parallels perception by proceeding via several functionally distinct mechanisms. In this review, we argue that even though there may not be a shared mechanism underlying vision for perception and conscious imagery, there is an overlap between the mechanisms underlying vision for action and unconscious visual imagery. On the basis of these findings, we propose a modification of Kosslyn’s model of imagery that accommodates unconscious imagination and explore possible explanations of the quasi-pictorial phenomenology of conscious visual imagery in light of the fact that its underlying neural substrates and mechanisms typically are distinct from those of visual experience. (shrink)

Human beings have the ability to ‘augment’ reality by superimposing mental imagery on the visually perceived scene. For example, when deciding how to arrange furniture in a new home, one might project the image of an armchair into an empty corner or the image of a painting onto a wall. The experience of noticing a constellation in the sky at night is also perceptual-imaginative amalgam: it involves both seeing the stars in the constellation and imagining the lines that (...) connect them at the same time. I here refer to such hybrid experiences – involving both a bottom-up, externally generated component and a top-down, internally generated component – as make-perceive (Briscoe 2008, 2011). My discussion in this paper has two parts. In the first part, I show that make-perceive enables human beings to solve certain problems and pursue certain projects more effectively than bottom-up perceiving or top-down visualization alone. To this end, the skillful use of projected mental imagery is surveyed in a variety of contexts, including action planning, the interpretation of static mechanical diagrams, and non-instrumental navigation. In the second part, I address the question of whether make-perceive may help to account for the “phenomenal presence” of occluded or otherwise hidden features of perceived objects. I argue that phenomenal presence is not well explained by the hypothesis that hidden features are represented using projected mental images. In defending this position, I point to important phenomenological and functional differences between the way hidden object features are represented respectively in mental imagery and amodal completion. (shrink)

Defined as vicarious sensorimotor experiencing, mental imagery is a powerful source of aesthetic enjoyment in everyday life and, reportedly, one of the commonest things readers remember about literary narratives in the long term. Furthermore, it is positively correlated with other dimensions of reader response, most notably with emotion. Until recent decades, however, the phenomenon of mental imagery has been largely overlooked by modern literary scholarship. As an attempt to strengthen the status of mental imagery (...) within the literary and, more generally, aesthetic discipline, this dissertation proposes an analysis positioned at a confluence of literary theory and the cognitive sciences, especially the emergent research framework of embodied cognition. Questions asked throughout the dissertation include the following: a) What are the basic varieties of mental imagery in the reading of literary narrative? b) By what contents or narrative strategies are they most likely to be prompted? c) What is it like to experience a mental image of a particular variety? d) What are its psychophysiological underpinnings? e) How does a mental image of a particular variety relate to perception? f) How does it relate to higher-order meaning-making? Four prototypical imagery varieties are distinguished on the basis of two variables with two values each (referential vs. verbal domain; inner vs. outer stance). Gradual transitions and in-between imagery varieties are acknowledged. The imagery typology and related hypotheses are grounded in introspection but carefully supported with indirect empirical evidence and, whenever possible, formulated so as to facilitate direct validation. (shrink)

We investigated the immediate and maintenance effects of mental-imagery-based mnemonic training on improving youths’ working memory, long-term memory, arithmetic and spatial abilities, and fluid intelligence. In Experiment 1, 26 Chinese participants aged 10–16 years were divided into an experimental group that received 8 days of mental-imagery-based mnemonic training and a no-contact control group. Participants completed pre-, post-, and three follow-up tests. In Experiment 2, 54 Chinese children, all 12 years old, were divided into experimental and control (...) groups. Participants completed pre-, post-, and follow-up tests. Results showed that the training significantly affected long-term memory-related task performance but no effects were observed on working memory, arithmetic or spatial ability, or fluid intelligence-related tasks. Moreover, the effect of the training on long-term memory lasted up to one year; the more frequently the training was used, the more effective it was. A content analysis of the feedback submitted by parents of participants in Experiment 2 three months after the training showed that the children used the strategy more for memorizing content such as Chinese and English, as well as for musical scores. Furthermore, there was also the possibility that the training improved abilities and academic performance such as concentration and math performance. Our results provide a basis for the further exploration of mental-imagery-based mnemonic training as a novel training modality. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to argue that the phenomenal similarity between perceiving and visualizing can be explained by the similarity between the structure of the content of these two different mental states. And this puts important constraints on how we should think about perceptual content and the content of mental imagery.

Fictions evoke imagery, and their value consists partly in that achievement. This paper offers analysis of this neglected topic. Section 2 identifies relevant philosophical background. Section 3 offers a working definition of imagery. Section 4 identifies empirical work on visual imagery. Sections 5 and 6 criticize imagery essentialism, through the lens of genuine fictional narratives. This outcome, though, is not wholly critical. The expressed spirit of imagery essentialism is to encourage philosophers to ‘put the image (...) back into the imagination’. The weakened conclusion is that while an image is not essential to imagining, it should be returned to our theories of imagination. (shrink)

The objective of this article is twofold. In the first part, I discuss two issues central to any theoretical inquiry into mental imagery: embodiment and consciousness. I do so against the backdrop of second-generation cognitive science, more specifically the increasingly popular research framework of embodied cognition, and I consider two caveats attached to its current exploitation in narrative theory. In the second part, I attempt to cast new light on readerly mental imagery by offering a typology (...) of what I propose to be its four basic varieties. The typology is grounded in the framework of embodied cognition and it is largely compatible with key neuroscientific and other experimental evidence produced within the framework. For each imagery variety, I make some elementary suggestions as to how it may typically be cued by distinct narrative strategies. (shrink)

Hallucination is a big deal in contemporary philosophy of perception. The main reason for this is that the way hallucination is treated marks an important stance in one of the most hotly contested debates in this subdiscipline: the debate between 'relationalists' and 'representationalists'. I argue that if we take hallucinations to be a form of mental imagery, then we have a very straightforward way of arguing against disjunctivism: if hallucination is a form of mental imagery and (...) if mental imagery and perception have some substantive common denominator, then a fortiori, perception and hallucination will also have a substantive common denominator. (shrink)

One of the most promising trends both in the neuroscience of pain and in psychiatric treatments of chronic pain is the focus on mental imagery. My aim is to argue that if we take these findings seriously, we can draw very important and radical philosophical conclusions. I argue that what we pretheoretically take to be pain is partly constituted by sensory stimulation-driven pain processing and partly constituted by mental imagery. This general picture can explain some problematic (...) cases of pain perception, for example, phantom-limb pain, and it also has important consequences for some recent philosophical debates about the nature and content of pain. (shrink)

Many philosophers use findings about sensory substitution devices in the grand debate about how we should individuate the senses. The big question is this: Is “vision” assisted by (tactile) sensory substitution really vision? Or is it tactile perception? Or some sui generis novel form of perception? My claim is that sensory substitution assisted “vision” is neither vision nor tactile perception, because it is not perception at all. It is mental imagery: visual mental imagery triggered by tactile (...) sensory stimulation. But it is a special form of mental imagery that is triggered by corresponding sensory stimulation in a different sense modality, which I call “multimodal mental imagery.”. (shrink)

There has been a lot of discussion about how the cognitive penetrability of perception may or may not have important implications for understanding perceptual justification. The aim of this paper is to argue that a different set of findings in perceptual psychology poses an even more serious challenge to the very idea of perceptual justification. These findings are about the importance of perceptual processing that is not driven by corresponding sensory stimulation in the relevant sense modality (such as amodal completion (...) and multimodal completion). I argue that these findings show that everyday perception is in fact a mixture of sensory stimulation-driven perceptual processing and perceptual processing that is not driven by corresponding sensory stimulation in the relevant sense modality and we have strong reasons to doubt the epistemic pedigree of the latter process. The implication of this is not that we should become skeptics or deny the possibility of perceptual justification. It is, rather, that the only way in which we can understand when and whether a perceptual state justifies beliefs is by paying close attention to empirical facts about the reliability of perceptual processing that is not driven by corresponding sensory stimulation in the relevant sense modality. In this sense (a very narrow sense) epistemology needs to be naturalized. (shrink)

What might a theory of mental imagery look like, and how might one begin formulating such a theory? These are the central questions addressed in the present paper. The first section outlines the general research direction taken here and provides an overview of the empirical foundations of our theory of image representation and processing. Four issues are considered in succession, and the relevant results of experiments are presented and discussed. The second section begins with a discussion of the (...) proper form for a cognitive theory, and the distinction between a theory and a model is developed. Following this, the present theory and computer simulation model are introduced. This theory specifies the nature of the internal representations (data structures) and the processes that operate on them when one generates, inspects, or transforms mental images. In the third, concluding, section we consider three very different kinds of objections to the present research program, one hinging on the possibility of experimental artifacts in the data, and the others turning on metatheoretical commitments about the form of a cognitive theory. Finally, we discuss how one ought best to evaluate theories and models of the sort developed here. (shrink)

An introduction to the science and philosophy of mental imagery.

What are mental images? Traditionally, philosophers have taken them to be representations of a certain kind. In common with all representations, they are seen as the kinds of thing that can be coloured, noisy, odorous, palpable or tasty, depending upon what they are representations of. But, in The Concept of Mind, Professor Ryle argues that this view of mental imagery is incoherent. Anything, he says, that really is coloured or noisy and so on, must, in principle, be (...) locatable, which mental images are not. He concludes that they cannot be the kinds of thing that the traditional view asserts them to be. Indeed, he goes further: he maintains that everything that exists has at least one of the properties mentioned in the above list and that, since mental images fail in this regard, they do not exist.Unfortunately, Professor Ryle's arguments in support of his contention that mental images are unlocatable are not conclusive. He assumes that if one can show that mental images are not locatable in ordinary space, they are not locatable in principle. (shrink)

L’art pariétal du Paléolithique supérieur présente, à côté d’un extraordinaire répertoire animalier bien diversifié, un grand nombre de signes qui ne trouvent pas d’équivalents dans la perception de la réalité sensible. Tandis que les images des humains ou des créatures mi-humaines mi-animales sont très rares, ces formes aniconiques, souvent géométrisantes et aisément classifiables, sont globalement plus nombreuses que les animaux. Si saisir l’intentionnalité qui a poussé les premiers artistes à peindre sur les parois représente un défi pour nos compétences interprétatives, (...) les « signes » constituent l’aspect le plus énigmatique de ce défi. Il y a trente ans, en 1988, dans la revue Current Anthropology, a été publié un article de James D. Lewis-Williams et Thomas A. Dowson, « The Signs of All Times. Entoptic Phenomena in Upper Paleolithic Art », ouvrant une nouvelle perspective sur l’origine des signes. En appliquant le modèle neuropsychologique à l’imagerie bidimensionnelle de l’art des grottes, il est possible d’identifier à des signes à valeur universelle, selon les auteurs, les apparitions entoptiques présentes, avec leurs diverses modalités combinatoires, dans l’art rupestre de « tous les temps ». Cette interprétation de l’art des sociétés préhistoriques, qui resitue la naissance des images dans les territoires visionnaires des cultures chamaniques, a soulevé en France des perplexités et des polémiques innombrables, parfois acerbes. Il est prioritaire alors de voir si le modèle neuropsychologique est effectivement en mesure d’offrir un cadre explicatif des données archéologiques des grottes ornées et de ses « constructions symboliques », en mesure d’intégrer tous les indices disponibles dans une construction théorique cohérente. The parietal art of the Upper Paleolithic shows, alongside with an extraordinary and highly diversified animalistic repertoire, a large number of signs which cannot be found in the perception of sensible reality. While images of humans or of anthropo-zoomorphic creatures are very rare, these aniconic forms—while often geometric and appropriate for classification—are globally more copious than animals. If understanding the intentions that prompted the first artists to paint on the walls represents a challenge for our interpretative skills, then the “signs” constitute the most enigmatic aspect of this challenge. Thirty years ago, in 1988, an article written by James D. Lewis-Williams and Thomas A. Dowson, and entitled “The Signs of All Times. Entoptic Phenomena in Upper Paleolithic Art”, was published in the Current Anthropology journal. This article opened up new perspectives on the origin of signs. According to its authors, by applying the neuropsychological model to the two-dimensional imagery of cave art, it is possible to identify universal signs ascribable to the entoptic appearances that can be found—in their different combined modes—in the rock art of all times. This interpretation of the art of prehistoric societies, which has led to the emergence of images within the visionary territories of shamanic cultures, has provoked countless—and sometimes harsh—disputes in France. It has therefore become a priority to evaluate whether the neuropsychological model is actually able to provide an explanatory picture of the archaeological evidence of historiated caves and their constructions symboliques that would be capable of integrating all the clues available into a coherent theoretical structure. (shrink)

Mental imagery is early perceptual processing that is not triggered by corresponding sensory stimulation in the relevant sense modality. Multimodal mental imagery is early perceptual processing that is triggered by sensory stimulation in a different sense modality. For example, when early visual or tactile processing is triggered by auditory sensory stimulation, this amounts to multimodal mental imagery. Pulling together philosophy, psychology and neuroscience, I will argue in this paper that multimodal mental imagery (...) plays a crucial role in our engagement with musical works. Engagement with musical works is normally a multimodal phenomenon, where we get input from a number of sense modalities. But even if we screen out any input that is not auditory, multimodal mental imagery will still play an important role that musicians and composers often actively rely on. (shrink)

When we see an object, we also represent those parts of it that are not visible. The question is how we represent them: this is the problem of amodal perception. I will consider three possible accounts: (a) we see them, (b) we have non-perceptual beliefs about them and (c) we have immediate perceptual access to them, and point out that all of these views face both empirical and conceptual objections. I suggest and defend a fourth account, according to which we (...) represent the occluded parts of perceived objects by means of mental imagery. This conclusion could be thought of as a (weak) version of the Strawsonian dictum, according to which “imagination is a necessary ingredient of perception itself”. (shrink)

When we remember a scene, the scene’s boundaries are wider than the boundaries of the scene we saw. This phenomenon is called boundary extension. The most important philosophical question about boundary extension is whether it is a form of perceptual adjustment or adjustment during memory encoding. The aim of this paper is to propose a third explanatory scheme, according to which the extended boundary of the original scene is represented by means of mental imagery. And given the similarities (...) between perception and mental imagery, the memory system encodes both the part of the scene that is represented perceptually and the part of the scene that is represented by means of mental imagery. (shrink)

'Principles Of Mental Imagery' offers a broad, balanced, and up-to-date introduction to the major findings of this research and identifies five general principles that can account for most of them. It considers the development of experimental techniques that have solved many of the challenging methodological problems inherent in imagery research and includes recent experimental findings not covered in other imagery books..

Mental images are one of the more obvious aspects of human conscious experience. Familiar idioms such as “the mind's eye” reflect the high status of the image in metacognition. Theoretically, a defining characteristic of mental images is that they can be analog representations. But this has led to an enduring puzzle in cognitive psychology: How do “mental pictures” fit into a general theory of cognition? Three empirical problems have constituted this puzzle: The incidence of mental images (...) has been unpredictable, innumerable ordinary concepts cannot be depicted, and images typically do not resemble things well. I argue in this paper that theorists have begun to address these problems successfully. I argue further that the critical theoretical framework involves thinking of mental images as information within a cognitive system that is fundamentally adaptive. The main outline of the adaptationist framework was evident in the school of thought known as American Functionalism, but adaptationism has formed a consistent pattern of theorizing across many authors and decades. I briefly describe Functionalism and then present seven basic claims about imagery that were common in the years before the predominance of behaviorism. I then show how these claims have reappeared and been further articulated in modern cognitive psychology. I end with a brief integration of some of the basic elements of an adaptationist theory of imagery. (shrink)

Philosophers and psychologists assume that mental imagery is a cognitive state, that it represents things as being a certain way. However, I argue that imagery is a conative state: it represents things as to be made a certain way. I challenge the traditional assumption by targeting an increasingly popular cognitive account that identifies mental imagery, such as inner speech, with predictions of sensory input. This predictive account faces both empirical and theoretical problems. The account not (...) only fails to capture the salience effects exhibited by mental imagery, it also cannot explain why subjects should not spend their lives minimizing prediction error by engaging in fantasy. These shortcomings highlight what I call the conative profile of imagery, which includes its salience, motivational, and performance effects. I argue that an alternative, conative view of imagery, according to which mental images are goal states, is best able to account for its conative profile. (shrink)

Neuroimaging and psychophysiological techniques have proved to be useful in comprehending the extent to which the visual modality is pervasive in mental imagery, and in comprehending the specificity of images generated through other sensory modalities. Although further research is needed to understand the nature of mental images, data attained by means of these techniques suggest that mental imagery requires at least two distinct processing components.

With admirable clarity, Pylyshyn shows that there is little evidence that mental imagery is strongly constrained to be analog. He urges that imagery must be considered part of a more general symbolic system. The ultimate solution to the challenges of image theory, however, rest on understanding the manner in which mental imagery is both a symbolic and an analog system.

Mental images, or envisioning things with your "mind's eye," are now studied via multiple levels of observation and involve computational neuroscience, robotics and many disciplines that complement philosophy and form integral parts of cognitive science. MENTAL IMAGERY AND CREATIVITY offers an historical analysis of the use of "mental images" in science. This book also gives many useful illustrations, depicting roles of imagery with 21st century technology, including the usage of imagery, fMRIs and internet connections, (...) allowing people to control virtual avatars or robots at remote distances. Imagery formations and brain imaging techniques allow non-communicative patients, who appear to be in vegetative states, to communicate effectively, despite brain damage. Notwithstanding many 21st century developments of imagery combined with technology and science, many speculative accounts of imagery arose in the 20th century. Philosophic developments, regarding the relation between mental imagery and creativity, are provided in order to compare and contrast speculative and rational foundations. Creativity is defined in relation to problem-solving, inventiveness, art, discovery and cognitive formations of ranges of possibilities, arising before and after realizations (i.e., when one recognizes real and unreal events or solutions), involving images of events, solutions and alternatives. (shrink)

This paper presents a new interpretation of the objects of dianoia in Plato’s divided line, contending that they are mental images of the Forms hypothesized by the dianoetic reasoner. The paper is divided into two parts. A survey of the contemporary debate over the identity of the objects of dianoia yields three criteria a successful interpretation should meet. Then, it is argued that the mental images interpretation, in addition to proving consistent with key passages in the middle books (...) of the Republic, better meets those criteria than do any of the three main positions. (shrink)