“In the 1930s, Nikola Tesla imagined a machine that would allow one to project a mental image in real life and play back your thoughts like a slideshow. He suggested if you had a mental image, your body would also produce a corresponding retinal image, which could be photographed and projected onto a viewing screen. Sep 21, 2016”
Nikola Tesla worked on many ideas; this is specific to his idea of the ability to ‘Photograph Thought’.
As certain as the concept to the dream of the night that all human beings condition Nikola Tesla gains light/resource to the retina as the origin of such a source in order to build the machine that he had conceived. Point of fact, the retina in dilation would have indeed brought such comprehension as logic, yet the logical measure of the brain and its capacity to imagery is the “Optic Nerve” in delivery and thus is that missing piece to his success in article to the “Photograph of Thought”.
This perception to the source of Nikola Tesla being the Einstein of such mathematics in essence to the successes from where he provided so much in patent it is the physics that drives this write and his idea to build a machine to ‘Photograph of Thought’. Nikola Tesla would not have been held to tightly for long as the imagery of just a dream would have given rise to the next inversion of problem, this is where I would prefer to believe that logic would have won the day as it is the optic nerve that has been the origin source. This indeed delivers not only the hinge to his idea as the doorknob it is the key to the next conception that makes this line of reasoning containable and provides Nikola Tesla’s machine with optimum success provided that the optic nerve would be accessed in safe display. The optic nerve as the source and not the origin would provide thought to simply be known immediately by any layman as the inevitable and lusted after third-eye, the real minds-eye, the camera to the lens of the machine that Nikola Tesla had imagined: The real center piece of mankind’s envy to many Middle Eastern religions.
Findings: The travel that human beings (Person) experiences in the rem sleep is the identity marker of their own minds-eye and thus the D.N.A. marker coming to introduction of so much more to be studied that the variable in and of itself may contain information that scientists have yet to set a marker for in the laboratory.
"Rapid eye movement sleep is a unique phase of sleep in mammals and
birds, distinguishable by random/rapid movement of the eyes,
accompanied with low muscle tone throughout the body, and the propensity
of the sleeper to dream vividly." Wikipedia
": the mental faculty of conceiving imaginary or recollected scenes used her mind's eye to create the story's setting also : the mental picture so conceived. Synonyms More Example Sentences Learn More about mind's eye."
Mind's Eye | Definition of Mind's Eye by Merriam-Webster
Mental image
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A mental image or mental picture is an experience that, on most occasions, significantly resembles the experience of visually perceiving some object, event, or scene, but occurs when the relevant object, event, or scene is not actually present to the senses.[1][2][3][4] There are sometimes episodes, particularly on falling asleep (hypnagogic imagery) and waking up (hypnopompic), when the mental imagery, being of a rapid, phantasmagoric and involuntary character, defies perception, presenting a kaleidoscopic field, in which no distinct object can be discerned.[5] Mental imagery can sometimes produce the same effects as would be produced by the behavior or experience imagined.[6]
The nature of these experiences, what makes them possible, and their function (if any) have long been subjects of research and controversy[further explanation needed] in philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and, more recently, neuroscience. As contemporary researchers[Like whom?] use the expression, mental images or imagery can comprise information from any source of sensory input; one may experience auditory images,[7] olfactory images,[8] and so forth. However, the majority of philosophical and scientific investigations of the topic focus upon visual mental imagery. It has sometimes been assumed[by whom?] that, like humans, some types of animals are capable of experiencing mental images.[9] Due to the fundamentally introspective nature of the phenomenon, there is little to no evidence either for or against this view.
Philosophers such as George Berkeley and David Hume, and early experimental psychologists such as Wilhelm Wundt and William James, understood ideas in general to be mental images. Today it is very widely believed[by whom?] that much imagery functions as mental representations (or mental models), playing an important role in memory and thinking.[10][11][12][13] William Brant (2013, p. 12) traces the scientific use of the phrase "mental images" back to John Tyndall's 1870 speech called the "Scientific Use of the Imagination". Some have gone so far as to suggest that images are best understood to be, by definition, a form of inner, mental or neural representation;[14][15] in the case of hypnagogic and hypnapompic imagery, it is not representational at all. Others reject the view that the image experience may be identical with (or directly caused by) any such representation in the mind or the brain,[16][17][18][19][20][21] but do not take account of the non-representational forms of imagery.
The mind's eye
The notion of a "mind's eye" goes back at least to Cicero's reference to mentis oculi during his discussion of the orator's appropriate use of simile.[22]
In this discussion, Cicero observed that allusions to "the Syrtis of his patrimony" and "the Charybdis of his possessions" involved similes that were "too far-fetched"; and he advised the orator to, instead, just speak of "the rock" and "the gulf" (respectively)—on the grounds that "the eyes of the mind are more easily directed to those objects which we have seen, than to those which we have only heard".[23]
The concept of "the mind's eye" first appeared in English in Chaucer's (c. 1387) Man of Law's Tale in his Canterbury Tales, where he tells us that one of the three men dwelling in a castle was blind, and could only see with "the eyes of his mind"; namely, those eyes "with which all men see after they have become blind".[24]
Physical basis
The biological foundation of the mind's eye is not fully understood. Studies using fMRI have shown that the lateral geniculate nucleus and the V1 area of the visual cortex are activated during mental imagery tasks.[25] Ratey writes:
The visual pathway is not a one-way street. Higher areas of the brain can also send visual input back to neurons in lower areas of the visual cortex. [...] As humans, we have the ability to see with the mind's eye—to have a perceptual experience in the absence of visual input. For example, PET scans have shown that when subjects, seated in a room, imagine they are at their front door starting to walk either to the left or right, activation begins in the visual association cortex, the parietal cortex, and the prefrontal cortex—all higher cognitive processing centers of the brain.[26]
The rudiments of a biological basis for the mind's eye is found in the deeper portions of the brain below the neocortex, or where the center of perception exists. The thalamus has been found to be discrete to other components in that it processes all forms of perceptional data relayed from both lower and higher components of the brain. Damage to this component can produce permanent perceptual damage, however when damage is inflicted upon the cerebral cortex, the brain adapts to neuroplasticity to amend any occlusions for perception[citation needed]. It can be thought that the neocortex is a sophisticated memory storage warehouse in which data received as an input from sensory systems are compartmentalized via the cerebral cortex. This would essentially allow for shapes to be identified, although given the lack of filtering input produced internally, one may as a consequence, hallucinate—essentially seeing something that isn't received as an input externally but rather internal (i.e. an error in the filtering of segmented sensory data from the cerebral cortex may result in one seeing, feeling, hearing or experiencing something that is inconsistent with reality).
Not all people have the same internal perceptual ability. For many, when the eyes are closed, the perception of darkness prevails. However, some people are able to perceive colorful, dynamic imagery.[citation needed] The use of hallucinogenic drugs increases the subject's ability to consciously access visual (and auditory, and other sense) percepts.[citation needed]
Furthermore, the pineal gland is a hypothetical candidate for producing a mind's eye[citation needed]; Rick Strassman and others have postulated that during near-death experiences (NDEs) and dreaming[citation needed], the gland might secrete a hallucinogenic chemical N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) to produce internal visuals when external sensory data is occluded.[27] However, this hypothesis has yet to be fully supported with neurochemical evidence and plausible mechanism for DMT production.
The condition where a person lacks mental imagery is called aphantasia. The term was first suggested in a 2015 study.[28]
Common examples of mental images include daydreaming and the mental visualization that occurs while reading a book. Another is of the pictures summoned by athletes during training or before a competition, outlining each step they will take to accomplish their goal.[29] When a musician hears a song, he or she can sometimes "see" the song notes in their head, as well as hear them with all their tonal qualities.[30] This is considered different from an after-effect, such as an afterimage. Calling up an image in our minds can be a voluntary act, so it can be characterized as being under various degrees of conscious control.
According to psychologist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker,[31] our experiences of the world are represented in our minds as mental images. These mental images can then be associated and compared with others, and can be used to synthesize completely new images. In this view, mental images allow us to form useful theories of how the world works by formulating likely sequences of mental images in our heads without having to directly experience that outcome. Whether other creatures have this capability is debatable.
There are several theories as to how mental images are formed in the mind. These include the dual-code theory, the propositional theory, and the functional-equivalency hypothesis. The dual-code theory, created by Allan Paivio in 1971, is the theory that we use two separate codes to represent information in our brains: image codes and verbal codes. Image codes are things like thinking of a picture of a dog when you are thinking of a dog, whereas a verbal code would be to think of the word "dog".[32] Another example is the difference between thinking of abstract words such as justice or love and thinking of concrete words like elephant or chair. When abstract words are thought of, it is easier to think of them in terms of verbal codes—finding words that define them or describe them. With concrete words, it is often easier to use image codes and bring up a picture of a human or chair in your mind rather than words associated or descriptive of them.
The propositional theory involves storing images in the form of a generic propositional code that stores the meaning of the concept not the image itself. The propositional codes can either be descriptive of the image or symbolic. They are then transferred back into verbal and visual code to form the mental image.[33]
The functional-equivalency hypothesis is that mental images are "internal representations" that work in the same way as the actual perception of physical objects.[34] In other words, the picture of a dog brought to mind when the word dog is read is interpreted in the same way as if the person looking at an actual dog before them.
Research has occurred to designate a specific neural correlate of imagery; however, studies show a multitude of results. Most studies published before 2001 suggest neural correlates of visual imagery occur in Brodmann area 17.[35] Auditory performance imagery have been observed in the premotor areas, precunes, and medial Brodmann area 40.[36] Auditory imagery in general occurs across participants in the temporal voice area (TVA), which allows top-down imaging manipulations, processing, and storage of audition functions.[37] Olfactory imagery research shows activation in the anterior piriform cortex and the posterior piriform cortex; experts in olfactory imagery have larger gray matter associated to olfactory areas.[38] Tactile imagery is found to occur in the dorsolateral prefrontal area, inferior frontal gyrus, frontal gyrus, insula, precentral gyrus, and the medial frontal gyrus with basal ganglia activation in the ventral posteriomedial nucleus and putamen (hemisphere activation corresponds to the location of the imagined tactile stimulus).[39] Research in gustatory imagery reveals activation in the anterior insular cortex, frontal operculum, and prefrontal cortex.[35] Novices of a specific form of mental imagery show less gray matter than experts of mental imagery congruent to that form.[40] A meta-analysis of neuroimagery studies revealed significant activation of the bilateral dorsal parietal, interior insula, and left inferior frontal regions of the brain.[41]
Imagery has been thought to cooccur with perception; however, participants with damaged sense-modality receptors can sometimes perform imagery of said modality receptors.[42] Neuroscience with imagery has been used to communicate with seemingly unconscious individuals through fMRI activation of different neural correlates of imagery, demanding further study into low quality consciousness.[43] A study on one patient with one occipital lobe removed found the horizontal area of their visual mental image was reduced.[44]
Neural substrates of visual imagery
Visual imagery is the ability to create mental representations of things, people, and places that are absent from an individual’s visual field. This ability is crucial to problem-solving tasks, memory, and spatial reasoning.[45] Neuroscientists have found that imagery and perception share many of the same neural substrates, or areas of the brain that function similarly during both imagery and perception, such as the visual cortex and higher visual areas. Kosslyn and colleagues (1999)[46] showed that the early visual cortex, Area 17 and Area 18/19, is activated during visual imagery. They found that inhibition of these areas through repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) resulted in impaired visual perception and imagery. Furthermore, research conducted with lesioned patients has revealed that visual imagery and visual perception have the same representational organization. This has been concluded from patients in which impaired perception also experience visual imagery deficits at the same level of the mental representation.[47]
Behrmann and colleagues (1992)[48] describe a patient C.K., who provided evidence challenging the view that visual imagery and visual perception rely on the same representational system. C.K. was a 33-year old man with visual object agnosia acquired after a vehicular accident. This deficit prevented him from being able to recognize objects and copy objects fluidly. Surprisingly, his ability to draw accurate objects from memory indicated his visual imagery was intact and normal. Furthermore, C.K. successfully performed other tasks requiring visual imagery for judgment of size, shape, color, and composition. These findings conflict with previous research as they suggest there is a partial dissociation between visual imagery and visual perception. C.K. exhibited a perceptual deficit that was not associated with a corresponding deficit in visual imagery, indicating that these two processes have systems for mental representations that may not be mediated entirely by the same neural substrates.
Schlegel and colleagues (2013)[49] conducted a functional MRI analysis of regions activated during manipulation of visual imagery. They identified 11 bilateral cortical and subcortical regions that exhibited increased activation when manipulating a visual image compared to when the visual image was just maintained. These regions included the occipital lobe and ventral stream areas, two parietal lobe regions, the posterior parietal cortex and the precuneus lobule, and three frontal lobe regions, the frontal eye fields, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and the prefrontal cortex. Due to their suspected involvement in working memory and attention, the authors propose that these parietal and prefrontal regions, and occipital regions, are part of a network involved in mediating the manipulation of visual imagery. These results suggest a top-down activation of visual areas in visual imagery.[50]
Using Dynamic Causal Modeling (DCM) to determine the connectivity of cortical networks, Ishai et al. (2010)[51] demonstrated that activation of the network mediating visual imagery is initiated by prefrontal cortex and posterior parietal cortex activity. Generation of objects from memory resulted in initial activation of the prefrontal and the posterior parietal areas, which then activate earlier visual areas through backward connectivity. Activation of the prefrontal cortex and posterior parietal cortex has also been found to be involved in retrieval of object representations from long-term memory, their maintenance in working memory, and attention during visual imagery. Thus, Ishai et al. suggest that the network mediating visual imagery is composed of attentional mechanisms arising from the posterior parietal cortex and the prefrontal cortex.
Vividness of visual imagery is a crucial component of an individual’s ability to perform cognitive tasks requiring imagery. Vividness of visual imagery varies not only between individuals but also within individuals. Dijkstra and colleagues (2017)[45] found that the variation in vividness of visual imagery is dependent on the degree to which the neural substrates of visual imagery overlap with those of visual perception. They found that overlap between imagery and perception in the entire visual cortex, the parietal precuneus lobule, the right parietal cortex, and the medial frontal cortex predicted the vividness of a mental representation. The activated regions beyond the visual areas are believed to drive the imagery-specific processes rather than the visual processes shared with perception. It has been suggested that the precuneus contributes to vividness by selecting important details for imagery. The medial frontal cortex is suspected to be involved in the retrieval and integration of information from the parietal and visual areas during working memory and visual imagery. The right parietal cortex appears to be important in attention, visual inspection, and stabilization of mental representations. Thus, the neural substrates of visual imagery and perception overlap in areas beyond the visual cortex and the degree of this overlap in these areas correlates with the vividness of mental representations during imagery.
Philosophical ideas
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Mental images are an important topic in classical and modern philosophy, as they are central to the study of knowledge. In the Republic, Book VII, Plato has Socrates present the Allegory of the Cave: a prisoner, bound and unable to move, sits with his back to a fire watching the shadows cast on the cave wall in front of him by people carrying objects behind his back. These people and the objects they carry are representations of real things in the world. Unenlightened man is like the prisoner, explains Socrates, a human being making mental images from the sense data that he experiences.
The eighteenth-century philosopher Bishop George Berkeley proposed similar ideas in his theory of idealism. Berkeley stated that reality is equivalent to mental images—our mental images are not a copy of another material reality but that reality itself. Berkeley, however, sharply distinguished between the images that he considered to constitute the external world, and the images of individual imagination. According to Berkeley, only the latter are considered "mental imagery" in the contemporary sense of the term.
The eighteenth century British writer Dr. Samuel Johnson criticized idealism. When asked what he thought about idealism, he is alleged to have replied "I refute it thus!"[This quote needs a citation] as he kicked a large rock and his leg rebounded. His point was that the idea that the rock is just another mental image and has no material existence of its own is a poor explanation of the painful sense data he had just experienced.
David Deutsch addresses Johnson's objection to idealism in The Fabric of Reality when he states that, if we judge the value of our mental images of the world by the quality and quantity of the sense data that they can explain, then the most valuable mental image—or theory—that we currently have is that the world has a real independent existence and that humans have successfully evolved by building up and adapting patterns of mental images to explain it. This is an important idea in scientific thought.[why?]
Critics of scientific realism ask how the inner perception of mental images actually occurs. This is sometimes called the "homunculus problem" (see also the mind's eye). The problem is similar to asking how the images you see on a computer screen exist in the memory of the computer. To scientific materialism, mental images and the perception of them must be brain-states. According to critics,[who?] scientific realists cannot explain where the images and their perceiver exist in the brain. To use the analogy of the computer screen, these critics argue that cognitive science and psychology have been unsuccessful in identifying either the component in the brain (i.e., "hardware") or the mental processes that store these images (i.e. "software").
In experimental psychology
Cognitive psychologists and (later) cognitive neuroscientists have empirically tested some of the philosophical questions related to whether and how the human brain uses mental imagery in cognition.
One theory of the mind that was examined in these experiments was the "brain as serial computer" philosophical metaphor of the 1970s. Psychologist Zenon Pylyshyn theorized that the human mind processes mental images by decomposing them into an underlying mathematical proposition. Roger Shepard and Jacqueline Metzler challenged that view by presenting subjects with 2D line drawings of groups of 3D block "objects" and asking them to determine whether that "object" is the same as a second figure, some of which rotations of the first "object".[52] Shepard and Metzler proposed that if we decomposed and then mentally re-imaged the objects into basic mathematical propositions, as the then-dominant view of cognition "as a serial digital computer"[53] assumed, then it would be expected that the time it took to determine whether the object is the same or not would be independent of how much the object had been rotated. Shepard and Metzler found the opposite: a linear relationship between the degree of rotation in the mental imagery task and the time it took participants to reach their answer.
This mental rotation finding implied that the human mind—and the human brain—maintains and manipulates mental images as topographic and topological wholes, an implication that was quickly put to test by psychologists. Stephen Kosslyn and colleagues[54] showed in a series of neuroimaging experiments that the mental image of objects like the letter "F" are mapped, maintained and rotated as an image-like whole in areas of the human visual cortex. Moreover, Kosslyn's work showed that there are considerable similarities between the neural mappings for imagined stimuli and perceived stimuli. The authors of these studies concluded that, while the neural processes they studied rely on mathematical and computational underpinnings, the brain also seems optimized to handle the sort of mathematics that constantly computes a series of topologically-based images rather than calculating a mathematical model of an object.
Recent studies in neurology and neuropsychology on mental imagery have further questioned the "mind as serial computer" theory, arguing instead that human mental imagery manifests both visually and kinesthetically. For example, several studies have provided evidence that people are slower at rotating line drawings of objects such as hands in directions incompatible with the joints of the human body,[55] and that patients with painful, injured arms are slower at mentally rotating line drawings of the hand from the side of the injured arm.[56]
Some psychologists, including Kosslyn, have argued that such results occur because of interference in the brain between distinct systems in the brain that process the visual and motor mental imagery. Subsequent neuroimaging studies[57] showed that the interference between the motor and visual imagery system could be induced by having participants physically handle actual 3D blocks glued together to form objects similar to those depicted in the line-drawings. Amorim et al. have shown that, when a cylindrical "head" was added to Shepard and Metzler's line drawings of 3D block figures, participants were quicker and more accurate at solving mental rotation problems.[58] They argue that motoric embodiment is not just "interference" that inhibits visual mental imagery but is capable of facilitating mental imagery.
As cognitive neuroscience approaches to mental imagery continued, research expanded beyond questions of serial versus parallel or topographic processing to questions of the relationship between mental images and perceptual representations. Both brain imaging (fMRI and ERP) and studies of neuropsychological patients have been used to test the hypothesis that a mental image is the reactivation, from memory, of brain representations normally activated during the perception of an external stimulus. In other words, if perceiving an apple activates contour and location and shape and color representations in the brain’s visual system, then imagining an apple activates some or all of these same representations using information stored in memory. Early evidence for this idea came from neuropsychology. Patients with brain damage that impairs perception in specific ways, for example by damaging shape or color representations, seem to generally to have impaired mental imagery in similar ways.[59] Studies of brain function in normal human brains support this same conclusion, showing activity in the brain’s visual areas while subjects imagined visual objects and scenes.[60]
The previously mentioned and numerous related studies have led to a relative consensus within cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy on the neural status of mental images. In general, researchers agree that, while there is no homunculus inside the head viewing these mental images, our brains do form and maintain mental images as image-like wholes.[61] The problem of exactly how these images are stored and manipulated within the human brain, in particular within language and communication, remains a fertile area of study.
One of the longest-running research topics on the mental image has basis on the fact that people report large individual differences in the vividness of their images. Special questionnaires have been developed to assess such differences, including the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) developed by David Marks. Laboratory studies have suggested that the subjectively reported variations in imagery vividness are associated with different neural states within the brain and also different cognitive competences such as the ability to accurately recall information presented in pictures[62] Rodway, Gillies and Schepman used a novel long-term change detection task to determine whether participants with low and high vividness scores on the VVIQ2 showed any performance differences.[63] Rodway et al. found that high vividness participants were significantly more accurate at detecting salient changes to pictures compared to low-vividness participants.[64] This replicated an earlier study.[65]
Recent studies have found that individual differences in VVIQ scores can be used to predict changes in a person's brain while visualizing different activities.[66] Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to study the association between early visual cortex activity relative to the whole brain while participants visualized themselves or another person bench pressing or stair climbing. Reported image vividness correlates significantly with the relative fMRI signal in the visual cortex. Thus, individual differences in the vividness of visual imagery can be measured objectively.
Logie, Pernet, Buonocore and Della Sala (2011) used behavioural and fMRI data for mental rotation from individuals reporting vivid and poor imagery on the VVIQ. Groups differed in brain activation patterns suggesting that the groups performed the same tasks in different ways. These findings help to explain the lack of association previously reported between VVIQ scores and mental rotation performance.
Training and learning styles
Some educational theorists[who?] have drawn from the idea of mental imagery in their studies of learning styles. Proponents of these theories state that people often have learning processes that emphasize visual, auditory, and kinesthetic systems of experience.[citation needed] According to these theorists, teaching in multiple overlapping sensory systems benefits learning, and they encourage teachers to use content and media that integrates well with the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic systems whenever possible.
Educational researchers have examined whether the experience of mental imagery affects the degree of learning. For example, imagining playing a five-finger piano exercise (mental practice) resulted in a significant improvement in performance over no mental practice—though not as significant as that produced by physical practice. The authors of the study stated that "mental practice alone seems to be sufficient to promote the modulation of neural circuits involved in the early stages of motor skill learning".[67]
Visualization and the Himalayan traditions
In general, Vajrayana Buddhism, Bön, and Tantra utilize sophisticated visualization or imaginal (in the language of Jean Houston of Transpersonal Psychology) processes in the thoughtform construction of the yidam sadhana, kye-rim, and dzog-rim modes of meditation and in the yantra, thangka, and mandala traditions, where holding the fully realized form in the mind is a prerequisite prior to creating an 'authentic' new art work that will provide a sacred support or foundation for deity.[68][69]
Substitution effects
Mental imagery can act as a substitute for the imagined experience: Imagining an experience can evoke similar cognitive, physiological, and/or behavioral consequences as having the corresponding experience in reality. At least four classes of such effects have been documented.[6]
- Imagined experiences are attributed evidentiary value like physical evidence.
- Mental practice can instantiate the same performance benefits as physical practice.
- Imagined consumption of a food can reduce its actual consumption.
- Imagined goal achievement can reduce motivation for actual goal achievement.
See also
- Aphantasia (condition whereby people can't think with mental images at all)
- Animal cognition
- Audiation (imaginary sound)
- Cognition
- Creative visualization
- Fantasy (psychology)
- Fantasy prone personality
- Guided imagery
- Imagination
- Internal monologue
- Mental event
- Mental rotation
- Mind
- Motor imagery
- Spatial ability
- Tulpa
- Visual space
References
- Mental Imagery Archived 2008-02-29 at the Wayback Machine
Further reading
- Amorim, Michel-Ange, Brice Isableu and Mohammed Jarraya (2006) Embodied Spatial Transformations: “Body Analogy” for the Mental Rotation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
- Barsalou, L.W. (1999). "Perceptual Symbol Systems". Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 22 (4): 577–660. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.601.93. doi:10.1017/s0140525x99002149. PMID 11301525.
- Bartolomeo, P (2002). "The Relationship Between Visual perception and Visual Mental Imagery: A Reappraisal of the Neuropsychological Evidence". Cortex. 38 (3): 357–378. doi:10.1016/s0010-9452(08)70665-8. PMID 12146661.
- Bennett, M.R. & Hacker, P.M.S. (2003). Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience. Oxford: Blackwell.
- Bensafi, M.; Porter, J.; Pouliot, S.; Mainland, J.; Johnson, B.; Zelano, C.; Young, N.; Bremner, E.; Aframian, D.; Kahn, R.; Sobel, N. (2003). "Olfactomotor Activity During Imagery Mimics that During Perception". Nature Neuroscience. 6 (11): 1142–1144. doi:10.1038/nn1145. PMID 14566343.
- Block, N (1983). "Mental Pictures and Cognitive Science". Philosophical Review. 92 (4): 499–539. doi:10.2307/2184879. JSTOR 2184879.
- Brant, W. (2013). Mental Imagery and Creativity: Cognition, Observation and Realization. Akademikerverlag. pp. 227. Saarbrücken, Germany. ISBN 978-3-639-46288-3
- Cui, X.; Jeter, C.B.; Yang, D.; Montague, P.R.; Eagleman, D.M. (2007). "Vividness of mental imagery: Individual variability can be measured objectively". Vision Research. 47 (4): 474–478. doi:10.1016/j.visres.2006.11.013. PMC 1839967. PMID 17239915.
- Deutsch, David (1998). The Fabric of Reality. ISBN 978-0-14-014690-5.
- Egan, Kieran (1992). Imagination in Teaching and Learning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Fichter, C.; Jonas, K. (2008). "Image Effects of Newspapers. How Brand Images Change Consumers' Product Ratings". Zeitschrift für Psychologie. 216 (4): 226–234. doi:10.1027/0044-3409.216.4.226. Archived from the original on 2013-01-03.
- Finke, R.A. (1989). Principles of Mental Imagery. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- Garnder, Howard. (1987) The Mind's New Science: A History of the Cognitive Revolution New York: Basic Books.
- Gur, R.C.; Hilgard, E.R. (1975). "Visual imagery and discrimination of differences between altered pictures simultaneously and successively presented". British Journal of Psychology. 66 (3): 341–345. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8295.1975.tb01470.x. PMID 1182401.
- Kosslyn, Stephen M. (1983). Ghosts in the Mind's Machine: Creating and Using Images in the Brain. New York: Norton.
- Kosslyn, Stephen (1994) Image and Brain: The Resolution of the Imagery Debate. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- Kosslyn, Stephen M.; Thompson, William L.; Kim, Irene J.; Alpert, Nathaniel M. (1995). "Topographic representations of mental images in primary visual cortex". Nature. 378 (6556): 496–498. Bibcode:1995Natur.378..496K. doi:10.1038/378496a0. PMID 7477406.
- Kosslyn, Stephen M.; Thompson, William L.; Wraga, Mary J.; Alpert, Nathaniel M. (2001). "Imagining rotation by endogenous versus exogenous forces: Distinct neural mechanisms". NeuroReport. 12 (11): 2519–2525. doi:10.1097/00001756-200108080-00046. PMID 11496141.
- Logie, R.H.; Pernet, C.R.; Buonocore, A.; Della Sala, S. (2011). "Low and high imagers activate networks differentially in mental rotation". Neuropsychologia. 49 (11): 3071–3077. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.07.011. PMID 21802436.
- Marks, D.F. (1973). "Visual imagery differences in the recall of pictures". British Journal of Psychology. 64 (1): 17–24. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8295.1973.tb01322.x. PMID 4742442.
- Marks, D.F. (1995). "New directions for mental imagery research". Journal of Mental Imagery. 19: 153–167.
- McGabhann. R, Squires. B, 2003, 'Releasing The Beast Within – A path to Mental Toughness', Granite Publishing, Australia.
- McKellar, Peter (1957). Imagination and Thinking. London: Cohen & West.
- Norman, Donald. The Design of Everyday Things. ISBN 978-0-465-06710-7.
- Paivio, Allan (1986). Mental Representations: A Dual Coding Approach. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Parsons, Lawrence M (1987). "Imagined spatial transformations of one's hands and feet". Cognitive Psychology. 19 (2): 178–241. doi:10.1016/0010-0285(87)90011-9. PMID 3581757.
- Parsons, Lawrence M (2003). "Superior parietal cortices and varieties of mental rotation". Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 7 (12): 515–551. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2003.10.002. PMID 14643362.
- Pascual-Leone, Alvaro, Nguyet Dang, Leonardo G. Cohen, Joaquim P. Brasil-Neto, Angel Cammarota, and Mark Hallett (1995). Modulation of Muscle Responses Evoked by Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation During the Acquisition of New Fine Motor Skills. Journal of Neuroscience [1]
- Plato (2000). The Republic (New CUP translation into English). ISBN 978-0-521-48443-5.
- Plato (2003). Respublica (New CUP edition of Greek text). ISBN 978-0-19-924849-0.
- Prinz, J.J. (2002). Furnishing the Mind: Concepts and their Perceptual Basis. Boston, MA: MIT Press.
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Third eye
The third eye (also called the mind's eye or inner eye) is a mystical and esoteric concept of a speculative invisible eye, usually depicted as located on the forehead, which provides perception beyond ordinary sight.[1]
Religious overview
In Dharmic spiritual traditions from India, the third eye refers to the ajna (or brow) chakra.[2] The third eye refers to the gate that leads to the inner realms and spaces of higher consciousness. In spirituality, the third eye often symbolizes a state of enlightenment or the evocation of mental images having deeply personal spiritual or psychological significance. The third eye is often associated with religious visions, clairvoyance, the ability to observe chakras and auras,[3] precognition, and out-of-body experiences. People who are said to have the capacity to utilize their third eyes are sometimes known as seers. In Hinduism and Buddhism, the third eye is said to be located around the middle of the forehead, slightly above the junction of the eyebrows, representing the enlightenment one achieves through meditation.[4][5] Hindus also place a "tilaka" between the eyebrows as a representation of the third eye,[6] which is also seen on expressions of Shiva.[4] Buddhists regard the third eye as the "eye of consciousness", representing the vantage point from which enlightenment beyond one's physical sight is achieved.[4]
In Taoism and many traditional Chinese religious sects such as Chan (called Zen in Japanese), "third eye training" involves focusing attention on the point between the eyebrows with the eyes closed, and while the body is in various qigong postures. The goal of this training is to allow students to tune into the correct "vibration" of the universe and gain a solid foundation on which to reach a more advanced meditative state. Taoism teaches that the third eye, also called the mind's eye, is situated between the two physical eyes, and expands up to the middle of the forehead when opened. Taoism asserts that the third eye is one of the main energy centers of the body located at the sixth Chakra, forming a part of the main meridian, the line separating left and right hemispheres of the body.[7] In Taoist alchemical traditions, the third eye is the frontal part of the "Upper Dan Tien" (upper cinnabar field) and is given the evocative name "muddy pellet".
According to the Christian teaching of Father Richard Rohr, the concept of the third eye is a metaphor for non-dualistic thinking; the way the mystics see. In Rohr's concept, mystics employ the first eye (sensory input such as sight) and the second eye (the eye of reason, meditation, and reflection), "but they know not to confuse knowledge with depth, or mere correct information with the transformation of consciousness itself. The mystical gaze builds upon the first two eyes—and yet goes further." Rohr refers to this level of awareness as "having the mind of Christ".[8]
Adherents of theosophist H. P. Blavatsky have suggested that the third eye is in fact the partially dormant pineal gland, which resides between the two hemispheres of the brain.[9] Reptiles and amphibians sense light via a third parietal eye—a structure associated with the pineal gland—which serves to regulate their circadian rhythms, and for navigation, as it can sense the polarization of light. C. W. Leadbeater thought that by extending an "etheric tube" from the third eye, it is possible to develop microscopic and telescopic vision.[3] It has been asserted by Stephen Phillips that the third eye's microscopic vision is capable of observing objects as small as quarks.[10] According to this belief, humans had in far ancient times an actual third eye in the back of the head with a physical and spiritual function. Over time, as humans evolved, this eye atrophied and sunk into what today is known as the pineal gland.[11] Rick Strassman has hypothesized that the pineal gland, which maintains light sensitivity, is responsible for the production and release of DMT (dimethyltryptamine), an entheogen which he believes possibly could be excreted in large quantities at the moments of birth and death.[12]
Philosophy
The use of the phrase mind's eye does not imply that there is a single or unitary place in the mind or brain where visual consciousness occurs. Philosopher Daniel Dennett has critiqued this view.[13]
In popular literature
The 1959 novel The Third Eye by Lobsang Rampa (born Cyril Henry Hoskin, 1910–1981, a native of Plympton, Devonshire) introduced a fictional account of the third eye for the first time to a wide popular audience of English-speaking readers.
See also
Notes
- Consciousness Explained, Daniel C. Dennett, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1991. ISBN 0-316-18065-3.
References
- Hale, Teresa (1999). The Book of Chakra Healing. New York: Sterling Publishing Company. ISBN 0-8069-2097-1.
- Radha, Siviananda (2004). Kundalini Yoga for the West. New York: Shambhala. ISBN 1-932018-04-2.
- Sagan, Samuel, M.D. (2007). Awakening the Third Eye (3rd ed). Roseville, N.S.W., Australia: Clairvision. ISBN 0-9586700-5-6.
- Sharp, Dr. Michael (2005). Dossier of the Ascension: A Practical Guide to Chakra Activation and Kundalini Awakening. St. Albert, Alberta: Avatar Publications. ISBN 0-9735379-3-0.
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Media related to Ajna chakra (third eye) at Wikimedia Commons
- Meaning of Buddha eye - Images of Buddha Eyes
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