John,

Glad to hear about your positive results. This is an interesting development! I found this web site about 5-HTP(near the top of the google search): http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/psychology/h...ology/5htp_myth.htm.

It would seem that "just being open and relaxed," as has often been suggested, is part of the key, and this may be helped by drugs.

Perhaps others on the list will comment about other drugs or herbs.

5-HTP definitely helps! While taking 5-HTP, I have finally began to experience some visual imagery. The visual imagery usually occurs while I am beginning to fall asleep, however, I have had some, although vague and fleeting, imagery while conscious. I am excited about this and hope my visual imagery improves. From what I understand, 5-HTP increases the neurotransmitter serotonin. Are there any other neurotransmitters which effects visual recall / visual imagery?

Robb,

Thanks. You have also contributed quite a number of posts and insights here. As for the study, there are a few contacts I can pursue here (near Atlanta) and possibly some in NYC. Pressure to have some kind of official study done has been building for some time, and I probably mentioned before that I might look into it -- but this time, I'll try to look into it in the next week or so.

BTW, yes, people should go for it. But the waters of academe are extremely trecherous. With a total time commitment averaging about 9 years for a Ph.D. and the initial pay usually very low, it has a high cost of entry.

I was fascinated to look back and read Dave's 172 posting; I think it's an excellent insight into the confusion and perculiar problems that non imagers experience on discovering the majority of people experience the world in a fundamentally different way.

My personal experiences are remarkably similar to what Dave talks about with one important difference; I have always been an accomplished artist and regularly draw things from scratch. Friends and colleagues find it difficult to accept that I can create such convincing ilustrations from memory without the aid of mental images.

This has puzzled me, but on analysis, my approach to creating a drawing is more to do with muscle memory, and understanding the shapes that go towards the appearance of something, than working from image memory. I first truely experience the image I'm creating as the marks appear on the page. My approach to creating a piece of art is a scientific one where I understand the elements that go to make a convincing representation of something. I reckon that I would be far more successful as a police artist rather than a witness describing a suspect.

Dave said, "I wonder if perhaps I could shoot for a PhD in Psychology, focusing my efforts on study within this concept". I think you should go for it Dave. All too often I find people seem to be merely humouring me when I explain thatI can't create conscious mental images, but the reality is , out of necessity, a non-imager's perspective on the world and thought processes would seem to be radically different to the majorities.

Tony's excellent thread here has opened up a serious and much welcomed debate, and I would love a clinical study to be undertaken to measure the differences in brain patterns. I'd be willing to contriburte my experiences and, if locality permitted, take part in a few of the studies. Perhaps, if the tests showed any significant results, the rest of the world would take the subject more seriously.

Dave,

Thanks so much for posting this info. I am sure many others will find it useful.

This is on the heel's of Paul's post 213, which also describes how to induce images.

NOTE TO USERS: Dave's previous post appears to be 172. You can use the SHOW ALL button at the bottom and EDIT > SEARCH to find previous posts.

DAVE: Your 172 post is very insightful and, I imagine, quite helpful to non-imagers.

When you say "non-focus" this corresponds exactly to the way Richardson (see my site) describes the way in which spontaneous imagery is generated. Your description of activity (as blocking spontaneous imagery to some extent) also appears to match with the idea that some scientists appear to have little or no imagery.

When you say "choose to see them in a way that visually thinking people take for granted," I believe (speaking for myself) there is a certain amount of choice involved, while some imagery is spontaneous, and other imagery requires effort. Spontaneous includes having "a tune run through your head" or "imagining a pleasant scene at the beach" (aural imagery also counts in widest sense of imagery). Effortful includes "let me see if I can rotate this figure in my head." Some of these include what may be termed "thinking," but this term is controversial in the literature and (as I have pointed out many times) philosophers in general do not accept the idea that one can think (e.g., in the strict sense of the term, as in making deductions) using images. Images are generally understood to be concomitants of thought, but their role is controversial, ranging from epiphenomenal to "symbols and objects in and through which we think" (Price's view). (I lean toward Price's view, the idea that there is a range of applications, according to imagery "types," that generalizations about the role of imagery are difficult -- if not impossible -- to make, and that "imagery" is a question-begging term which often implies that there is linguistic content inherent in the image.) So, while “thinking” captures the way many people feel they use imagery, remembering, imagining, and daydreaming (as you point out in 172) is also very much a part of it -- which I am pretty sure is what you meant by the general term "thinking."

Thanks once again for posting.

freidah, thanks for the update. . .i find your experience very encouraging.

I posted in this thread a while back, and I wanted to include an update.

I have spent a lot of time practicing meditation lately, and have found that visualizations CAN come to me under certain circumstances.

It seems to require complete non-focus in regards to my visual input. Rather ,I place my focus on my "inner body", my sense of "being" (Eckhart Tolle talks a great bit about this concept), and, once having cultivated a relaxed state, images may spontaneously pop into my consciousness.

I do not yet seem to have control over what images pop into my mind, and they vanish as soon as I realize they are there. Like Wily E Coyote running off a cliff, staying in mid air until he realizes he has no ground below him; In this way, I continue to see images until I realize I see images, and then they shut off immediately to be replaced by the visual input of the back of my eyelids.

So it seems when I become consciously aware of my visualization (rather than effortlessly allowing the pictures to flow into my being), my mind becomes overly active, and it brings me out of the prerequisite state of relaxation necessary for the images to occur in the first place.

I hypothesize that if I can get to the point where I do not get excited by the prospect of mental imaging, I may gain some control over them, and an increased degree of conscious awareness of them in day to day life, perhaps to the point that I can choose to see them in such a way that visually thinking people take for granted.

-Dave

Edited by author 06-17-2008 10:59 AM
Robb,

Good points. Another thing: how would you remember the images after hypnosis, and how does the hypnotist verify that you are actually "seeing" images rather than working from verbal descriptions/memories? As I said, it's all very complicated, especially with regard how empiricism in the philosophy of mind is supposed to work. Once again, I am reminded of Wundt and Brentano who expressed skepticism regarding empirical methods despite the fact that they pursued them. In Wundt's case, he actually invented equipment, which I simulated on my site.

If you pursue the hypnotism angle, let us know. You might ask the hypnotist to employ special techniques.

Tony

Hi Tony,

I get the feeling that the majority of us are all potentially capable of some kind of mental-imaging, but in some of us that ability is being comprehensively blocked from reaching our conscious minds. I can create dreams but I can't create cognitive mental images, so I feel there must be mental blockage somewhere. Whether this is hard wired or a reprogrammable error remains to be seen. If it's the latter then Hypnosis could be a fruitful avenue to pursue.

Perhaps some forgotten trauma early in life could have produced an over active self defence reaction to prevent access to re-imaging the event and, subsequently, any further attempt at imaging. If that is the case then I'm hopeful that Hypnosis could release that defensive block. However, there is a catch 22... a lot of hypnotic induction seems to require a degree of mental imaging. Have any non-imagers managed to be successfully hypnotised?

Robb,

Thanks for the post. I think since we have had some reports of success things may beging to change for some people. Hypnosis sounds like a good idea to me.

You stated: "There seems to be an attitude of "Oh, don't be silly,
you're mistaken..everyone sees something!" Well, maybe. But non-imagers apparently dream, and some can perform tasks that would seem to require image processing. Reminding people of this is just a way to point out that their image processing may not be entirely absent; it is just unconscious. On the other hand, an "unconscious image" is not an image at all, to my way of thinking, and according to the definition of mental images I use. So, non-imagers would be correct in their self-assessment. Then again, empirical studies, which discount self-described experiences and just measure iputs and outputs, also tell us something. The whole thing -- describing quasi-visual experiences, attempting to measure them, attempting to correlate them with brain events, etc. -- really results in a LOT of confusion for philosophical psychology!

In the last couple years, as we have had more posts about how to experience images and how to describe them, I am wondering if image memory can be an acquired skill like perfect pitch. For a long time, perfect pitch was thought to be an innate faculty. A couple of years ago there was a fellow selling a course claiming to teach you how to have perfect pitch (sorry, no link). Everyone has the capability; it just has to be developed. The process involved "paying attention" to sounds. In some respects, it sounded similar to the exercises Paul mentioned.

Tony

I love this topic because it really does highlight the frustration that non-imagers, like myself, feel when we try to explain to the world of "imagers" that we really don't see anything. There seems to be an attitude of "Oh, don't be silly, you're mistaken..everyone sees something!".... but we don't. Its as incomprehensible to an imager that I don't create a mental image, as the concept of people creating images is to me. Only those people who break through the non-imaging barrier will be able to really appreciate both sides of the fence.

It looks like some of the experiments mentioned here could really help break the barrier down. Has anyone had any success with hypnosis to kick start the imaging?

Hi.
You said: "Or, as you said the experience is close to seeing a real object, but one knows it is not real."
Of course one knows that is not real; otherwise it would be an hallucination (like it happens in dreams, while sleeping).

Paul,

Yes. You are entirely correct, and this is exactly what I meant by the necessity of using quotes. The definition you gave is the one I follow and have used in my work.

Nothing is actually seen (for then a physical object would be present), but something is "seen." Or, as you said the experience is close to seeing a real object, but one knows it is not real.

Tony

Hi, Tony.
You said: "Second, "seeing" is generally to understood to be always in quotes when we speak of waking, self-directed, mental images."
From what I understood by talking with others, the mental imagery experience is very close to seeing a real object, but they know is not real (usually the image appears something else, not in the front of eyes, BUT many claimed that when close the eyes the images appeared right in the front of physical eyes). As far I understood, most (vivid) imagers, when the eyes are closed, projects the mental imagery in front of the eyes, but when the eyes are opened, the mental imagery are projected somewhere else (in "the back", "up", etc).

This confirms what I have read here (the definition):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_imagery
A mental image is an experience that significantly resembles the experience of perceiving some object, event, or scene, but that occurs when the relevant object, event, or scene is not actually present to the senses (McKellar, 1957; Richardson,1969; Finke, 1989; Thomas, 2003).

P.S. Before knowing about this subject, everytime when I saw the phrase "see in your mind", I thought that is just a figure of speech and no image is really experienced :-)

Paul,

Thanks for the post and links! I will review these more carefully later.

You said something about sleep I also wanted to mention when people ask about stimulating imagery. You may be able to catch yourself dreaming simply by suggesting to yourself that "I will remember my dreams" or "If I have a dream, I will wake up." Naturally, this interferes with sleep, so I don't recommend this if you have a high-pressure job, but I have used the technique in the past, I have read about it, and it might work for non-imagers.

Your post also reenforces two other ideas. First, I think many studies have shown that everyone (or nearly everyone) has dreams (or at least has REM, which may not be the same thing), so everyone has "images" in this sense. Second, "seeing" is generally to understood to be always in quotes when we speak of waking, self-directed, mental images.

Tony

Hi.
1) about image streaming
Since the first time I attempted to do image-streaming exercise, I could describe the internal imagery, even if there was only "knowing". After this, I experienced started to experience some vague mental imagery. The problem is that the fear started to kick in. And this is the most big disadvantage of image-streaming exercise: it's quite sensitive to mental blocks. But, for the one who hasn't this problem, this exercise is a very powerful exercise (I know persons who, in few weeks, with this exercise, enhanced very much the mental imagery; it became (with eyes closed) like real-life). Until I will get used with some mental images and know how be able to relax, I am using other exercises (which are less effective than image streaming, but (I hope) not as sensitive to mental blocks). After I will get used with these, I have the intention to continue with image streaming.

Other important thing about image streaming is that you can start from scratch (i.e. completely mental 'blind') and to become a vivid imager. I talked by mail with a person who was a non imager and since age 39 (because the image streaming) became a visualizer. I believe that there is no "too old" age to start becoming a visualizer, because, anyway, during REM sleep (and not only REM sleep) everybody dreams (at least 1-2 hour a night, even if no dream remembered next day), so the brain does the obligatory imagination exercises :-)

here is more about image streaming:
http://www.winwenger.com/imstream.htm

here is how to start if you are completely non imager:
http://www.winwenger.com/isbackup.htm

So, now I am doing other things (until I can "return" to image streaming):
1) try to look a bright light and look for after images. I noticed that, sometimes, just before the after-image becomes invisible, I see that it moves (or rotates 3d)
Here is what I found (on a lucid dreaming forum):
http://www.dreamviews.com/community/showthread.php?t=29491

2) I try to visualize a simple object(eg: scissors). Here is the weird fact about my imagination: it is only 3d (without images). I have success in about 1-2 from 10 tries. How to explain...it's hard, but let's try. Look in front of you and pay attention to the feeling of depth of the objects near you. Now, close one eye (while avoid movement of the head), and you'll see that only remains the image and the feeling of depths dissapears. So, you can consider, in this example, the sight = the image + the depth. Now, image that, because some reason, you will not be able to see any image, but the "depth part" of the sight remains (kind of blind-sight?). You can see an object that it rotates, or moves, but no image. It's not the sense of touch, but the part of the depth from the sense sight.
Now, kind of this is my imagination. The sense of depth is not detailed as the sense of depth from the real sight. But, because the image part is almost non-existent, the imagination is very unstable: I "see" (with only depth) an object, who rotates a fraction of seconds and dissapears completely.
A fun thing that I found about some imagers is they have a image without depth in the head (it's like pictures).

3) I talk very much about the mental imagery (to find out more) :) and to remove the mental blocks. Also, I read a lot of documentation about this: what are the benefits, what are the risks (well, anything in this world has some risks, right? :) ), how to avoid problems (eg. I found out that vivid mental images can relax, remove phobias, but also, they can produces phobias). Also, I am trying to contact persons who are interested about this subject(and the best to discuss somehow in real-time; this is the reason why I asked about persons who want to discuss using yahoo messenger). Unfortunately, most visualizers are just too used with mental images and they are not interested about this subject.

Paul

Paul,

Thanks so much for posting this news.

Do you have some specific links or exercises you would like to share? I easily found one description of Win Wenger's technique: http://www.creativethinkingwith.com/Image-Streaming.html
I am sure there are many others. Note that this involves many forms of imagery (sounds, smells, etc.). This fits with the idea that images are essentially complexes and visual images have narrative/verbal component, which is essential to their meaning. This also fits with the idea of "passive attention" to processes already going on in your mind that I mentioned in message 210. Although the process asks you to describe what you "see," I would guess that the point is not to get frustrated if you do not innitally "see" anything and let other modalities/functions work.

Images can be both useful and disturbing -- I quite agree.

If you have anything to suggest in the way of what should be included in a permanent page/link about how to improve imagery capabilities, please post or contact me directly.

Tony

Hi.
Indeed, the (almost complete) absence of mental images is something very frustrating for me, too. There are so many useful things which can be done by using them and not only for the usefulness, but for the beauty: ex: the ability to image a beautiful landscape.
The good news for me (at least) is that I am a low imager (perhaps I became like this since last year from non-imager). Unfortunately, the progress is really slow, mostly because of the fear of them (a person who is used with (almost) vivid mental imagery doesn't understand how unusual/strange experience it is (from a non-imager or a very low imager point of view).

I talked on the net with a person who became an imager from non imager, so I believe that is possible. Even Win Wenger (the person who invented the "image-streaming" exercise), say that he was a non-imager, before discovering this mental exercise.

There is anyone here who, like that person, is an "ex-nonimager" ? I would like to talk with him/her (on yahoo messenger).
Also, I would like to talk(on yahoo messenger) with a non-imager who is frustrated because of this and want to become an imager. Please contact me on 'paulgfx' account from yahoo messenger.

Paul

Helen,

Thanks for the post. You said:

"I've come to think, considering the last statement about color recognition, that I have something akin to "blindsight" - I don't know I can see, but I do process visual information."

That would be my conclusion as well.

Let us know if anything comes of your exercises regarding creativity and/or visualization. There have been cases of the visual system suddenly changing. For example, color vision has been lost and then suddenly restored. I recently I saw on PBS how nutrition can sometimes restore better functionality to some areas of the brain. This is another avenue to pursue.

I mentioned to John (201 below) that there may be ways to stimulate imagery through "passive attention" or using the imagery-related abilities that you may have, such as the color memory you mentioned. Perhaps you also have a good memory for the size of objects (objects that you have not touched, so the memory is based on visual information)?

Linda,

All I can say is that I think you have completely misinterpreted the intent of my posts. Nevertheless, I encourage you and others to express your frustrations and concerns here. As for studying the cognitive functionality of non-imagers (e.g., memory), I have been giving some thought about how best to do that lately. But one method is already being used: people post here and explain how they experience the world. This is the kind of thing I encourage.

Thanks Helen. I am aware that I've developed other cognitive "superpowers" to compensate for my mental blindness, and have been getting a lot of insight into the emotional trauma that occurred to me as a small child that caused my mental vision to shut down. I get aggravated when people like Tony, who has no way of knowing what my cognitive experience is like, insist on either denying my reality altogether, or negating the impact of this limitation. Maybe some people who characterize themselves as non-imagers are actually weak imagers. But that's no reason to respond to all non-imagers as if they were weak imagers. I would be thrilled to experience a weak image mentally -- that would be a life-changing event for me,' it would mean that my mental TV has been turned on, and would provide hope for further mental visual experiences, albeit "weak". Tony has no idea how functional or dysfunctional we non-imagers are. As far as I can figure, tests that evaluate your ability to rotate letters mentally are seriously lacking in the study of visual imagery, because they don't address the most significant uses of visual imagery, nor do they address the implications of mental blindness. The fact that I can't rotate letters mentally has never caused me much grief. The fact that I cannot dredge up any childhood memories, not to mention memories of last week, in an experiential way in my mind, is a problem. How about studying the impact of mental blindness on memory? I would love to see Tony shut off his mental visual imagery 100% for a week, then hear how fully functional he felt in the absence of autobiographical/episodic memories.

I've noticed that most of the posts to this list are from people who describe themselves as non-imagers, and Tony routinely responds to us by telling us that mental blindness is not really any big problem for us, we function so well, and anyhow we really do have mental visuals, we just don't know it, so what's the problem? The reason this list gets so many messages from people who are mentally blind is because our condition has been almost completely ignored by cognitive scientists and neurologists for several decades, and we have nowhere to turn for information and support. Tony, I would suggest that you might study our cogntive functionality instead of dismissing our concerns.

big love to you all
Linda

On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 2:59 PM, QT - Helen A2 <
qtopic-20-Z85yvCpH8FP@quicktopic.com> wrote:

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< replied-to message removed by QT >

Hi Linda, I can relate to your frustration about not being a visualizer since I am in the same boat. . .There are, however, ways that being an auditory thinker has been more beneficial than not, particularly in my ability to recall the things that I've read and talked about.

I also have an excellent memory for past conversations which sometimes exceeds that of my visualizing friends - at least it does when I pay attention. And the odd thing is, even though my imagal field is a grey screen, I can match a black sweater in the store to a black skirt I have at home despite their being a million shades of black.

I've come to think, considering the last statement about color recognition, that I have something akin to "blindsight" - I don't know I can see, but I do process visual information. What I'm exploring currently in relationship not only to visualizing but to other forms of creativity as well, are practices that are said to balance ones right and left hemispheres - neurolink pro, emotional freedom technique (eft), etc. One thing that stops my inability to visualize as irritating but not devastating, is how interesting I find people's (including my own) it that people's ways of knowing are so different.

ps. You might also want to look at Dawna Marcova's book "The Art of the Possible" which describes different ways of knowing and how to build on them.

Linda,

Of course you are right. My advice, intended to be helpful, would not apply to such cases. But as I have observed several times, some "non-imagers" are really just "low-imagers," so they may be able to do some of the things I mentioned. Also, there is no harm in trying. Such efforts might even "turn on" the function that is turned off, which is also are reason for suggesting exercises.

For those of us who consider our imagery to be "normal" (whatever that is), I also think visual mental exercises are a good thing.

Thanks again for the reminder about this issue.

Tony

p.s. With regard to non-imagers being "fully functional", I know I'm not: because I have no visual mental imagery whatsoever, I have no way of having episodic/autobiographical memories -- there is no cognitive delivery mechanism for re-seeing things that I've seen before. So I operate on semantic memory alone. My only recollection of my past experiences is in the form of words that relate facts about my experiences. I cannot remember anything for which I haven't memorized facts as a narrative, because I have no mental way of displaying this information. The lack of being able to recall my past experiences in any experiential way is a severe form of amnesia.
Linda

Tony, you really don't seem to understand that people who have no mental imagery whatsoever can't "practice" it by doing your alphabet
visualizations, because there are no visuals to work with! That would be like telling a stone deaf person to improve their hearing by listening to music and singing along with it, when they can't hear the music at all. It's not a matter of trying to improve some capability which is weak; it's a matter of turning on a function that is turned off.
Linda

On Fri, Jun 6, 2008 at 8:59 AM, <QT-TonyBirch> wrote:

>
< replied-to message removed by QT >

John,

While you are frustrated, others appear quite happy with their lack of images. Some seem to have regarded images as completely unnecessary and possibly an incumbrace for clear thought.

There are numerous tips for expanding imagery capabiliites in this disscussion. Search back the last 2 years or so.

In my own exerience with hypnagogic images, I found it was simply a matter of relaxed attentivness.

Another exercise I try from time to time: visualize letters of the alphabet sequentially in different configurations (rotated 90 degrees, mirror image, etc.). Working with the alphabet is a particularly good exercise, I think, since word and character recognition is so deeply imbedded.

There are always the various tests and exercises I have on my site as well. The "corner counting" test uses the alphabet too.

Yes, sensory deprivation does cause hallucinations, but can be dangerous without supervision, and true sensory deprivation is very difficult to achieve. You might try milder forms of relaxation, such as looking up at clouds. What images come?

Todd,
In the spectrum of mental images, Hallucinations and Lack of image formation form thje two ends. If in Hallucinations you go to the right on the spectrum, it is exactly the opposite direction, the left, in Lack of image formation. Various stages of enhancement or fading form the middle of this spectrum.

Paul and Todd: Thank you for your comments. It's nice to know that there are others with the same condition. I am extremely frustrated my inability to see mental images while concious, not to mention trying to explain this lack of a "mind's eye" to a doctor. I have been aware of this since my early teens and I am determined to correct this.

Tony: What about sensory deprivation for this? Doesn't sensory deprivation cause one to hallucinate, see images and hear sounds that are not real? Is it possible for this to "jump start" the visual imagery?

Edited by author 03-19-2008 09:26 AM
Todd said: "At this point in life I would not want to gain the ability[of mental imagery], as I would probably go instantly insane with all of the "sights"."
Well, this is my biggest issue. I am a almost non-imager and I would like to become an imager (and I studied many possitive effects and I think that it would be a very good mental "upgrade" for me), but I have a lot of fear about this, like Todd told before. Even if I know that most people manages to have conscious images (and vivid), I don't know if I could "cope" with it. How can I get past of this fear?
Paul

Thanks Tony,

Interesting point about the scientific/rational mind, it makes a lot of sense.

One observation that I noticed interviewing the hundreds of people, is the amount of television they watched related to the amount of ability they had. It seemed like the worst imagers seemed watched much more TV than average. The one's that could "see" the best watched very little to none.

Can this phenomenon be seen under a MRI? Has anyone studied this with modern technology?

Todd

Todd,

Thanks for posting. Your story is quite familiar! The only thing that I know of that lack of imagery seems to be correlated with is having a scientific/rational mind. This impression is based on very old data, but seems supported by the fact that many of the non-imagers posting here are academics and/or have advanced degrees. If you review these posts you will see what I mean.

My impression is that although some non-imagers feel they are missing something, most seem to be fully functional.

Your story of being able to draw a floor plan corresponds with other accounts. What to make of it, I am not entirely sure at this point.

Tony

I have been conscious of being a non-imager for 5 years, although I had suspicions in school when the entire class was instructed to picture an apple in our minds. I have practiced and tried everything that I have read up on and tools that have been recommended to me. As far as I know, I do not currently dream, although I remember dreaming when I was younger (they were verbal dreams like being read a book). I can not see colors, shapes, lines or anything at all. I have a hard time understanding how people can see images. I would find that very distracting and feel like I would be less productive in life. On the other hand, I could see how taking a mental vacation from daily life would definitely help in the relaxation department. As I have been told by others, I probably store the images but there is a disconnect to my mind's eye. For example, I can draw a floorplan of the home I lived in 30 years ago, but I do not understand how I can without "seeing" it. At this point in life I would not want to gain the ability, as I would probably go instantly insane with all of the "sights". I find this subject very interesting and information is hard to come by. I have asked hundreds of people about their level of imagery and to date have found no one with the level as me (zero). Does anyone know if this is comorbid with any mental illnesses? Also, do non-imagers have any handicaps in life over imagers? Thanks in advance for any help or information on the subject.

hi, i'm just back from costa rica and looking forward to catching up on your recommended "readings." a little more about me, i'm retired social work professor from the university of michigan. ph.d in social psychology -i've been aware that what was going on in my head was different from the norm when we were asked to do these relaxation protocols that required envisioning a peaceful scene. ironically, since i couldn't, i'd get anxious. h

Lakhi,

Thanks for that update. Maybe not as safe as you would think. If my hypothesis is right, there is some mental imagery activity in "non-imagers," but they don't have conscious access to it. My imagery abilities are pretty normal or average, by the way.

Tony

Jack Gallant of UCB has reported the results of his research on Mental Imagery in 'Nature' using fMRI techniques. He says "It may soon be possible to reconstruct a picture of person's visual experience from measurements of brain activity alone" That makes persons with lack of Mental Imagery like me, Helen and Tony safe from the prying eyes of Jack and his machines.

Please also keep in mind that loss of Mental Imagery is the reverse of Hallucination. I would be happy with the former.
                                                  Lakhi

On 25/02/2008, QT - helen a2 <qtopic-20-Z85yvCpH8FP@quicktopic.com> wrote: >
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< replied-to message removed by QT >

thanks lakhi, neela, tony, i'm looking forward to viewing your comments/websites when i return home from costa rica. best.

Helen,

For see vs. "see" and my defintion of mental images (which is not mine as much as it is Richardson's) look at my site. It's practically a course on the subject:http://www.gis.net/~tbirch/hp5.html. Start with: What are Mental Images? I would rather you get this information in context, rather than me posting something that might be misleading.

Blindsight, from my point of view, is mostly phenomenological. It means people have knowledge based on visual data but they don't know how they have it.

Lakhi's posts on blindsight/hemispheres may be good ones to follow up on.

Helen A2

As I pointed out in my communication of 11-29-2008, making images is the function of the right lobe of the brain but loss of mental imagery happens in the left lobe. Please, interpret this keeping your question in mind. You may get the answer. Lakhi


On 24/02/2008, QT - helen a2 <qtopic-20-Z85yvCpH8FP@quicktopic.com> wrote: >
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< replied-to message removed by QT >

tony, can you clarify the distinction you make between "see" (re:after image) and "seen." is the "blindsight" you refer to what occurs when individuals whose right and left brain hemispheres are split?

and you say that your definition of mental images doesn't fit with what is or isn't going on in my situation. i'd appreciate hearing what your dfiition is. thanks

Helen,
Thanks for the report on the tests.
You said: "remembered what the letters would look like if rotated."
This implies a visual mental image of some sort, since you did not say "I remembered reading that an N when rotated 90 degrees clockwise looks like a Z." Your statement about the windows in the house has a similar implcation. You did not say "I remembered that there were 10 windows, because I counted them once 5 years ago." Rather, you said you counted them in real time. It can be, as others have told me, that you have no image and this phenomenon is similar to blindsight (subjects are not aware of any image, but report the information only available from images). As I have stated ad nauseum, there are several definitions of "mental image." Your account fits one definition. For the record, it does not fit my own official definition.

It's interesting that you said the only image you saw was the after-image. This, of course, is the only image that any normal person ("imager" or not) can see. The other ones are "seen."

The 3-D problem is hard. Not surprising that you did not get that. No one gets the "wheel" problem.

Something does not sound right about the size estimation problem. It deals with size memory -- not how it appears at different distances? Or is something wrong with the directions? I will check on that.

Thanks once again for your report and the link, which appears to be about similar accounts. The whole issue continues to amaze!

tony, you ask how it's possible to describe something w/o seeing it. . .this is only a guess, but it seems to be a function of memory - analogous to my being able to remember what i had for dinner w/o needing to "re-taste" it. i am primarily an auditory thinker - have much easier time remembering books i've read than events i've taken part in - probably what led me to becoming an academic. there's a web posting i came across when i googled "help, i can't visualize" that closely matches my own phenomenological experience: http://www.dfan.org/visual. dan schmidt the writer of the piece is a musician. . .which didn't surprise me.

tony, the tests are interesting. the only image i could "see" was the after image of the blue dot. i remembered what the letters would look like if rotated. i could remember the windows in my house and i did count them altho i couldn't actually see them. when i looked at the first image of the boat - i recognized it could also be a face and didn't need the second image to knw what was being depicted - it reminded me of the gestalt goblet/profile of a woman test - and i think it was on the wechsler iq test that i was off the charts in recognizing a whole image from a little part. thinking about it some more right now, if the second image looked like something in its own right,i didn't code it. i couldn't do the rubix cube at all - perhaps because it's a 3 dimensional problem (if i remember, the only 3 dimensional image on the test); taking a risk of sounding like an idiot - i couldn't figure out how to get only nine cubes from the initial cubes even when i tried it with a piece of jarlsberg cheese afterward - all was not lost, however, as my chihuahua was very happy to eat the little cubes up when i finished experimenting. it seemed odd to me, that i couldn't do the rubix cube problem because as a kid i did very well manipulating 3 dimensional images on the "kudur preference test" (now this dates me). in the projected double triangle, it looked the same size to me from different distances - about 9" and i could 'imagine' it fitting through a small, little door. forget the wheel in front of the house - couldn't do that one. another fact about me which may seem odd is that i write visually rich poetry - people hearing my poems tell me they can see the scenes i describe vividly. . . . .ps. stefan, i'm trying to shift my "seeing" inward, i have tried to do this before without success but perhaps now that i am meditating it will happen.

Stefan and Helen A2, Thanks for posting. Your accounts are similar in that you report to be able to describe without seeing. How is that possible? This is the question that has been at the root of the imagery debate. As always, I am curious about how posters here do on the various tests I have on my web site.
Stephan, thanks for that advice! I found a similar process worked with images prior to sleeep.
http://www.gis.net/~tbirch/x2.htm
http://www.gis.net/~tbirch/x1.htm
http://www.gis.net/~tbirch/x3.htm
http://www.gis.net/~tbirch/x5.htm
http://www.gis.net/~tbirch/x6.htm
http://www.gis.net/~tbirch/x7.htm

Helen, I too was a complete non-imager. I was entirely unable to obtain ANY mental pictures, while likewise still possessing the ability to describe and recall visual details. What has worked for me is maintaining total relaxation while attempting to visualize, being very careful to exert as little effort as possible, while trying to forget about my eyes. I found that when I used to (unsuccessfully) try to visualize something, all of my concentration was focused on the visual field of my eyes, so of course all I could get was the back of my eyelids. Once I was able to relax and allow my focus to divert to my mind instead of my eyes, I became able to get mental pictures, weakly at first and only in short bursts, but increasing in detail and duration with practice.

I found your "conversation" when I was searching for information about how a non-visualizer might work effectively within a Tibetan Buddhist meditation system. The Tibetan system of mind training depends, in large part, on the person's ability to develop increasingly more detailed mental images. Since I, like many of the posters here, don't see mental images, the challenge for me is great. My teachers try to encourage me by saying even seeing a yellow lump is okay. Problem is I can't see a lump of any color. My fantasy is that I find a blind-from-birth Tibetan teacher to guide me. Since this isn't happening, I thought I'd see where joining this conversation might lead.

It may be worth knowing that even though I can't "see" (e.g. the screen is grey) I can "remember" and describe visual scenes w/o seeing t being able to see them imagistically (don't know if that's a word).

I have only had time to read a few of your posts - they certainly help me feel like I'm in good company. Perhaps this was discussed earlier in the thread - if so, let me know.

 I am interested in the possibility that drugs can damage the ability to mental image. I have a sister that is a brilliant artist and
designer. She lost the ability to see a mental image. She has a blank screen with no color, shape or anything.
 Prior to a drug experimentation with PCP in 1976, my sister had full access to mental images. The loss of this ability occured shortly after the effects of the drug were no longer present.
She experienced a profound sense of loss at the inability to mental image.
The impact on her life has been great.
Since the effects reported by users of that drug are primarily mental images, I am interested in learning if this drug damages parts of the brain used to produce mental images.

Subscribers:

Sorry about the recent spam post about money making. That happens from time to time. There is no way to avoid it unless I go to a more sophisticated list. I like the openness of the current one.

There have been a number of posts lately I have not responded to. Hope to get to that soon.

Freidah (David Friedman) - an excellent post!
Just to respond to one point:
  No, although I guess have indicated that being able to do the "tests" tells us whether or not you "have mental images," Descartes's considerations (contra Wittgenstein, I think) hold true: we cannot know what goes on in other minds. However, many empirical psychologists tend to accept the idea that being able to do some specific tasks, such as "mental rotation" (as in Shepard and Metzler) is a strong indication of there being a mental image "present" to the subject. However, it could also be an indication of an "image," but one that is not present to the subject, which is nevertheless processed in some way. The later possibility may fit your case.

This whole discussion board demonstrates, I think, the huge variability in the nature of conscious life.

Keep me informed please. It is an interesting subject to me. I have been asked by my wife "How can you design things without seeing what you are doing"? My only explanation is that--- "I work out all the aspects of what I want to do knowing the physical forces acting upon what I am creating --I feel, or decide if it will work ok and be strong enough to last" That is all I can say at this point. My life experiences are in storage and I draw upon all of them but I never see any pictures in my head.
 
Immediately after staring at something in the bright sunlight and close my eyes; I have experienced a black and white very dim picture which fades very quickly, but this is nothing like what my wife and son have revealed to me they can see!
 
Stay in contact. ---------------------------------Fred----------.


**************************************See AOL's top rated recipes (http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004)

Dear David Friedman, excellent observations. When I switched to English as a Second Language, I did most of my exercises through an internal verbalization. Since than, when I write, I am aware of my "internal spelling". This activity was not obvious in my native language. With this exercise going on for more than 20 years, today it became a part of me. In the meantime, I realized that I had a harder time to form mental images in a natural way, by dreaming or daydreaming. I have no problems in inviting images on my mental screen, playing with them, modifying them etc. It seems that the law of "If you don't use it, you lose it", or that of overusing a perceptual mode can be detrimental to another one, may be also true for mental images.
Larry

I have found lot of literature on Mental imagery on Google web. I looked under the topics " Lack of vividness of mental imagery" and also " loss of ability to form mental images" There is a flood of information. One item that gave me the hope of proper diagnosis was an article in The Journal of Neuroscience, Vol 16, No 20, Oct 15,1996 pp 6504-6512. The topic is " Functional Anatomy of Spatial Mental Imagery". Being an old writing it gives PET rather than fMRI as the tool. All the same it shows that ' mental construction specifically activated a bilateral occipito-parietal-frontal network ---------' By carrying out fMRI study my Neurologist could have probably located the defect in temporal blood circulation. But he ignored my suggestion.
Now to the more specific problem to which I am seeking answers. Can Lack of Mental Imagery be drug-induced? Or am I blaming some drugs unnecessarily?

Edited by author 12-07-2007 05:57 PM
After reading through this thread, suspicions that I have had about my own "visualizing" abilities, or lack thereof, have been confirmed. I recently had a discussion with a friend, Rachael, where it became clear, through conversation, that we "visualized" in a fundamentally different way. When I attempt to remember how something looks or imagine something, it is, what I can only describe as, a cognitive process, rather than a visual process. I do not see a picture with my "mind's eye," and therefore, there is a very distinct discrepancy between my "daydreams" and my dreams at night, whereas, with Rachael, the only difference, visually, between her dreams at night and her "daydreams" is that she is aware she is awake and has control over what images come to mind when "daydreaming." Now, the reason why I keep putting these words in quotes is because the greatest obstacle in having these sorts of discussions with people is the terminology used. I do "daydream," it's just that my definition of the word is different in that they are linguistically based in nature, as though I am having a conversation with myself. This obstacle was hard to overcome in conversation, as we had both always assumed that everyone thought in the same way as each of us, respectively. I had never realized that people could, in a sense, lucidly control their visual field throughout the day with their imagination, and she had never realized that there were people who couldn't, and since this difference doesn't seem to have an obvious affect on objective day-to-day behavior output (or does it?), and since I have always believed that I did, in fact, "daydream," (in my own way, of course), it was difficult to overcome this semantic hurdle. Once it was crossed, however, many things, ranging from the mundane to enormously important, came to light. For example, I understood...

1) ...why relaxation techniques which had one imagine themself on a beach, or whatever other soothing location, had never worked for me.

2) ...why many meditation techniques made no sense to me (so many are visualzation based, ie: imagine a flame, and then focus on the flame and nothing but the flame, etc) And also why I could never achieve the results of friends who undertook meditation practice, and whom would describe having amazing visual experiences while in a deeper state of consciousness.

3) ...why the stage-fright cure to imagine the audience naked was completely ludicrous to me

4) ...why I had always been relatively poor at drawing and recreating visual images in general.

5) ...why visual detail was never a top priority in my writing (but instead, character motivation and development)

6) ...why I could never understand what these TV psychics were talking about when they said that "images came to them." I always thought that was the reason why it was all a bunch of hooey, but now I'll have to reconfigure my skepticism.

7) ...why dreams have always fascinated me so incredibly. I always thought it was so amazing that the mind could create these vivid lifelike scenarios while asleep, and always wondered why the mind could not do a similar thing throughout the day. Well, apparently it can, and it was merely I who was unable to recreate such an expereince.

8) ...why I was always so confused by which the process which animals must think. I never thought to consider they could think in pictures, since I couldn't, and so I imagined their cognitive life to be virtually empty, where it is certainly possible that they think entirely in pictures, and have a bustling cognitive experience.

9) ...why, after having done a report on feral children (children raised with minimal, to no, human contact), I was so frightened by the prospect that someone could live without acquiring and developing a "operating system" for the mind, thus leaving them completely cognitively empty (much like the animal problem described above). Of course this problem could still take place if such a person were a non-imager, like had I been in such a situation.

10) ...why, growing up, I never had any difficulty discerning my imagination from reality. The concept of the "imaginary friend" made absolutely no sense to me. And as much as I loved the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, I never could relate with the way he was able to distort reality to his liking.

Further implications of this discovery, being a psychology major myself, brings me to wonder what impact the ability (or lack-thereof) has on a person’s potential to perform certain tasks, to be led to a certain set of occupations, the lucidity of other senses (what if all of my senses, across the board, are less vivid in my imagination? How would I ever know?), etc. For example, I have always had a poor sense of direction. Is this a correlate of being a non-imager? On the other hand, words come to me relatively easily, and most of my skills are verbally related (speaking in public, writing, etc). Is this a sort of compensation mechanism similar to that of a blind person developing a better sense of hearing?

It seems reasonable to hypothesize that people whom are best with words, whom it seems apparent that their thinking is working under a verbal operating system are likely of the non-imager population subset. Convincing politicians, clever salesmen, motivational speakers, and perhaps most interestingly, writers. This is ironic to me, given that, say, a fiction writer would need to use his “imagination” to create the vivid scenes and details of his works. However, I have taken an interest in creative writing, and am able to produce relatively solid stories being a complete non-imager. It is no problem for me to convert my words into images for others to “see,” but I myself have a difficulty in seeing the pictures inherent in others’ words.

To concisely put a theory together, imagers who think with pictures will then, through a bit of cognitive effort, convert their naturally occurring pictures into words for the purpose of further understanding their meaning and to express this meaning to others, whereas non-imagers skip the picture phase all together and it is words which naturally come to mind, without significant cognitive effort. Although, I do have reason to believe that mental imaging exists on a spectrum, and so if one is to throw that into the thought experiment we are engaging in here, it is further complicated.

I really do wonder why there isn’t an abundance of research on this subject out there, insofar as the possibility that a complete absense of visualizaton ability can actually exist, yet people can still perform tasks which seem to require a certain degree of visualizing. For example, I was able to successfully perform many of the tasks on your web site Professor Birch, but I would venture to guess that my technique differed from your own, in the same way that a blind person eventually learns to maneuver himself in a "seeing" world, despite his inability to see, with the help of a walking stick. You wouldn't ascert that such a person could, in fact, see merely because he is able to function, would you? That seems to be the equivalent of what you are hypothesizing towards those who are internally blind; that merely because they can perform a certain task that you use your internal sight for, non-imagers must also be taking a similar route to functionality. But I would say that for me, or a person like me, to have been able to survive this long without such a seemingly important human sense, I must have been able to compensate efficiently.
 
All in all, this appears to be such a provocative field of study with seemingly unlimited potential. I have been leaning towards applying to law school, but now I wonder if perhaps I could shoot for a PhD in Psychology, focusing my efforts on study within this concept, if only this was a field of study that was recognized as being legitimate, and not merely an issue of semantics.

I do believe that some simple FMRI scans could give us a lot of answers on this, if they haven’t been done already. Take someone who is an imager and have them “visualize” something, and then take someone who is a non-imager, and have them, in their own definition of the word, “visualize” something. Are they using the same part of the brain? And if not, does the non-imagers’ “visualizing” areas of the brain activate when dreaming? Since visualizations take place in dreams for imagers and non-imagers alike, we should see brain activity which is very similar. Also, I would be curious to find out if there is any correlation between those who can experience lucid dreams and being a non-imager, since only in a lucid state would they be able to control their visualizations, and therefore they would be more likely to realize that they are not awake when taking such visual control into their own hands.

I would also wonder if someone who is completely blinded later in life, will eventually lose his or her ability to visualize over time, due to a lack of visual stimuli. But perhaps an even stranger question would be if one is blinded, and they CAN still visualize, do they use this ability frequently in order to soften the emotional impact of the loss they have undergone?

I think this is a very important dialogue taking place here, and I would request to be referred to any further contemporary reading which exists on the subject, or any studies that have already taken place.

-David Friedman
University of Arizona

I didn't have any problem with mental imagery till 2006 beginning, even though I have been thru' Bypass surgery in 1994, Angioplasty in 2001 to another artery and again Angioplasty in 2006 beginning on the remaining Coronary artery. After the last procedure on 23rd Jan my anti hypertensives dose was increased four fold. I started noticing the change. Now, I can't reproduce mental image of a person sitting in front of me by closing my eyes. Something exactly opposite of Hallucination in which the person sees others sitting in front of him where no one is there.I reduced antihypertensives back to original. I blamed Clopidogrel for the problem and stopped it. My next suspicion is on Atorvastatin. Blood circulation on the left side seems to have reduced substantially leading to insidious Glaucoma in the left eye. Carotidynia seems to the likely cause. Reduced blood circulation in the left brain should have been expected to reduce my main abilities. But surprisingly only this particular defect is apparent as on this day. Literature shows that making images is the function of the right lobe but loss of mental imagery is associated with the left lobe. Should I ignore this or should I get ready for Alzheimer's? I am 72 M.

Has anyone read any books or articles about being blind internally -- lacking the ability to image? How do you remember what you read since your don't picture? I have a PhD in English and never saw a single picture when I read fiction -- my enjoyment was understanding the motives, learnings, insights of the characters -- as well as the language. It's great to finally learn of other people like me. Do any of you struggle with directions? -- I get lost all the time. One positive -- my mind doesn't wander -- I'm really focused. Eager to hear from others.

I too am a non-imager, or at least a relative non-imager as the case may be. What I experience when trying to visualize something is akin to what you might experience when trying to recall a particular taste. For example, try to conjure up the taste of an apple. You're probably "intellectually" aware of the taste and consistency of the apple, but I would venture to guess that most people don't experience anything that's on the same level as what you perceive when you physically eat.

For instance, when trying to imagine a tree (to stick with the previously used example), I'm aware of the trunk, leaves, branches, etc., but the mental TV screen is blank. It's like I'm aware of a vivid image somewhere inside my head, and I'm able to access the information that is contained therein, but I can't actually shift my focus to it.

My eyes were opened to the broad range of ability that different people exhibit for mental imagery when I began to learn more about Dyslexia. My wife is extremely dyslexic (as is much of her family), and her mother is a dyslexia correction facilitator. What I've learned is that, basically, dyslexics suffer from an abundance of internal visual stimuli and are capable of manipulating their visual perspective.

For example, prospective clients for the particular dyslexia program that my mother-in-law provides are assessed in the following manner: The individual is asked to hold out their hand, palm facing up. They are then asked to imagine either a piece of pizza, or pie/cake sitting in their hand. She then asks them to describe the object (let's arbitrarily assume that it's a piece of pie for the purposes of this discussion). She asks what type of pie it is, which direction it is facing, if the crust is golden brown or darker, whether it's a traditional or lattice topped pie, etc.

The logic behind this is that most dyslexics are visual-thinkers to the extreme. If you ask a dyslexic to imagine a woman, the person immediately forms a complete mental picture, filled with detail. They will be able to tell you what type of shoes the woman is wearing, whether she is standing on a road or under a tree, how she is standing, even what color her eyes are. This way of visual thinking extends as far as to dominate their abilities in terms of comprehension.

One of the reasons that dyslexics have a hard time with reading, math, and other non-visual activities is due to "trigger words", or words that have no clear visual representation. When a dyslexic reads or hears the word tree, there's an instant picture of a tree in their minds eye. When a dyslexic hears or reads a word like "the", there's no immediate picture to call upon. This particular program for dyslexics involves creating 3-dimension clay models to associate with each trigger word (this has proved to be incredible effective in helping dyslexics cope with a non-dyslexic world. I've seen adults as old as 70 go from reading at a third-grade level to reading at a twelfth-grade level over the course of a 5-day program).

The other major struggle that dyslexics have is one of orientation. Manipulating these mental images and their perspective in relation to them comes so easily to dyslexics, that it's often difficult to orient themselves in relation to the tangible external stimuli they are receiving. They are able to place their minds eye anywhere, and often have difficulty finding an anchor for their point of reference. It's something like a constant, mild, sub-conscious vertigo.

Because of these abilities, dyslexics tend to be incredibly skilled at both conjuring up mental images, and attaining lucidity in dreams (more on this in a moment). For example, one particular young girl that my mother-in-law was working with had a peculiar problem. Whenever she would read, she would place her right hand at the edge of the table or book. When she was asked what she was doing, she replied that she had to catch the letters as they jumped off of the page and marched off of the end of the table. If she didn't, they would fall to the floor and make a huge mess. When she finished reading, she would move her right hand as if to redeposit all of the letters back in the book before closing it.

This might sound slightly schizophrenic, but the inability to discern this mental projection from reality is likely related to the young age of the girl. My wife has related similar accounts to me from her own childhood, and has mentioned that it took time to learn to differentiate her imagination from reality.

Another dyslexic friend of ours has told me that when he gives somebody directions, his physical surroundings disappear, and he is instantly traveling the path that he is describing. Not just vividly, not just in color, but in a manner that is completely indistinguishable (visually) from reality. This is the same level of detail that my wife achieves, either with her eyes closed or open. When open, she can conjure images that coexist with external visual input, or replace them. Furthermore, she is capable of completely blocking out all external visual stimuli, essentially inducing blindsightedness, with the ability to turn it back on at any time.

Most dyslexics are thusly able to daydream in a manner that's utterly indistinguishable from reality. This seems to be related to lucidity in dreams, as most dyslexics seem to be lucid the majority of the time. My wife is always aware that she is dreaming, and is usually able to alter the dreamworld as she wishes. Whenever she is unable to control the content of her dreams, she describes the feeling as living the same loop over and over again, or as an uncontrollable stream of ideas, much like the incessant chatter and stream of thought that runs through most of our brains.


In my own experiences in trying to enhance my own visual ability, it seems as if the mental images do already exist somewhere within my brain, just somewhere that I can't seem to look directly at. It's like a name that sits on the tip of your tounge, yet eludes you. I don't think that the right path is in trying to utilize brute force to bring these images to the surface, nor does excessive concentration seem to be valuable.

I don't think that these mental images actually exist internally on the same plane as normal perceptual vision. I think the key is in diverting your focus from external input. Rather than trying to force the image of a tree into your visual field, try to ignore the back of your eyelids in favor of just thinking about a tree. You can't focus on the internal picture until you divert your focus from external stimuli.

Furthermore it shouldn't be difficult, if you are trying hard, then all you are really doing is focusing really hard on what your eyes are seeing. In order to look at your minds eye, you must tear your focus away from your physical eyes. Ponder the following analogy: You are at a table with two couples, each of which is carrying on a different conversation. You know that one of these conversations is about cars, and that one is about food. You are utterly focused on the food conversation, but desperately want to know more about the car conversation. You will never experience it by attempting to listen for the car conversation within the words of the couple discussing food. You must first divert you attention from the food conversation before you can refocus it to the other couple.

I know it's a convoluted scenario, but it's the best I can come up with on the spot. By ignoring what my eyes are telling me, I've been able to get vivid images only momentarily, they disappear as soon as I try to focus on them. It seems as if the key is a complete lack of effort. The only I've found any success in holding on to the images is by remaining calm and allowing the thoughts and images to come freely, without any interference on my part. I hope that further practice will provide me with more control.

For what it's worth, I've gone from a 1 (no image) on the triangle scale to a 3, with occasional 4s and the odd momentary flash of 6. It's not the same as seeing, it's an entirely different mental function which produces the same result, albeit while flexing entirely different "mental muscles" so to speak.

Thanks to everyone that has participated in this discussion so far. I too am often met with utter apathy when I attempt to discuss this topic with anyone, yet I'm totally enthralled with the topic.

Edited by author 09-02-2007 12:31 PM
Cathy,

Your description would roughly match what Galton reported for about 25% of his respondents in his famous "breakfast table" survey of 1880.

Although Robb58's poll has a small sampling, it is also falling in line with Galton's general results:

25% Fairly clear or better (like reality)
50% Fairly clear but with only with one or two objects "visible" or better
75% Dim. Not comparable to a real scene, or better

Posters to this discussion group tend toward the belief that their utter lack of imagery or poor imagery is a "defect," and in some cases it appears to cause problems. On the other hand, Galton seems to feel that in some respects the lack of imagery among scientists is a badge of honor, since it would indicate greater use of the capacities for abstract thought.

Following Galton, as well as one or two posts from others in this forum who have greater knowledge of psychology than I, it appears that "no imagery at all" would be something less than 6% of the population, and more likely just 2-3%.

As Galton reported, I think most people simply do not realize there is any "defect" or "difference" in their memory modalities.

I believe Larry may have mentioned the cultural component in all of this. One gets the impression from ancient literature that verbal memory (e.g., recalling epic poems, etc.) may have been the preferred mode, and hence more finely tuned than we are apt to see today.

See http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Galton/imagery.htm

Tony Birch

Hi Cathy, I think the majority of people have some sort of mental imaging. I started a poll on a forum that I run and although a small number of people have responded so far, it clearly show tha non imagers are in the minority. Here's the link if you're interested:
Imager or non imager poll

Ok, i have just learned that my mental visualisation is really very poor. Occasionaly I can see things, but i have to focus really hard and even then there is no detail, and the image is kind of sketchy. So how rare is this exactly? I mean does this happen to loads of people and they just never realise or is it just a couple of people?

Also is there a proper term for this?

Edited by author 07-16-2007 10:20 AM
Hi to all.
Tony: I asked many ppl and they told me that the mental images (to see in their minds) are part of their normal thought process. They claimed that their visualization is vivid. It's hard to deschibe what means "vivid". For some "vivid" could mean less blurry, for others, it could mean more colourfull or less dim. So, there are many variables for "vividness". So, perhaps my image with the tree was quite wrong, because it has only one parameter of vividness. Hope that in my next test (see below) I am doing more properly :)
Even the same image can have more levels of vividness. Example: the real sight. Only in the center, the image is vivid while in the rest of the image , it is very blurry (try to concentrate on your peripheral vision, and you'll see that is quite blurry). Guess that this happens to mental image too, isn't it? Some parts are blurry, while other parts are more vivid.
Also Tony, I forgot to tell you that sometimes I *feel* that I have a picture in my head, without seeing it. Its just knowing that mental image exists, without seeing it at all; but I can describe somehow it's contents (or at least what represents).

I made another image (for test) and I wish you to ask you (this is for good visualizers):
Please try to image as vividly as you can a red rose. After this, please look at this image ( Rose ). Which one is closest as luminosity/blured to your mental image? (if you can compare; if you can't please tell me why not). In theese pictures I tried to use 3 variables. In the left part there are most blurred images and least saturated. In the upper part there are most dim images.

Also, when you are think to somebody, how vividly you see him/her? Can you distinguish it's eyes/mouth/lips?
Paul

ALL:
   Last nite I went to "Medieval Times" (a multi-sensory show - terrific!) and had quite a few dreams this morning. Real dents, real sparks, in real swords, with real horses charging yields very real dreams!
   I am glad all of you have found ways to express your experiences! Thanks!


paulgfx:
  156 - I think someone might get a sudden flash of an image that is fairly complete, but this might be the exception more than the rule, and, of course depends on what type of imagery you are talking about. See Larry's recent post about images, completeness, and context. Personally, I don't think there are many "vivid imagers" of the type you seem to imply might exist. Certainly, the "picture file of photograph-like complete images in the head" hypothesis is not one that most psychologists or philosophers would subscribe to today. But apparently, some have memory and other images that are more suggestive of actual visual input than others -- just as Galton found a century ago -- so that part is right.

robb58:
   157 - "I know this is a bit of a clumsy analogy and I'm not suggesting that nonimagers are like computers, but it seems like there's a slightly abstract process working behind the scenes in the mind of nonimagers!"
   Investigators like Kosslyn and Pylyshyn assume the "behind the scenes" view is true. There is no division between imagers and non-imagers, however, in work based on their principles. The difference between the views is the functional significance of conscious visual mental images.

sjw:
   158 - "...for the first time I took a prescription sleep aid (something "estra," the one with the butterfly in the ad) and for the first time in my life I could form a mental picture. It was a blast!"
   Very interesting! Plugs right into research showing that hallucinogenic images (which includes dreams, etc.) have to do with relaxation and letting go of external inputs, and can be the result of drugs. Ancient practices from all cultures use this technique.


Linda:
   160 - Glad you are making some progress! I would not recommend taking drugs or trying too hard, however. But be your own guide in this. Years ago, I experimented with hypnagogic images (see http://www.gis.net/~tbirch/mi2c.htm). By simply relaxing and paying attention to what was happening "behind the eyelids" I found that images, patterns, designs, etc, would present themselves (and I even "drew" one, as seen on my pages). Some years ago I got a message from someone complaining that he saw "geometric patterns" prior to sleep. He was worried that this indicated a badly wired brain. I experimented again. Yes, that can happen too -- or, my brain is also badly wired.


Larry:
   162 - I like your descriptive phenomenology very much. It sounds right to me, as far as most personal experience goes. This is also similar to memory images: when I "try" to remember where my keys are, I get nothing. Suddenly, there will be an "image" (please, not a "photograph"!) that flashes through. I "see" the keys in a certain context. And sometimes this image is quite wrong! I simply wanted the keys to be there! Narrative context always has something to do with images. I have, in fact (although perhaps not clearly enough) promoted the idea that images are best thought of as complexes of inner narration (or verbal "data") and presented visual "data." The word "data" needs to be in quotes because I want to avoid computer connotations.
   Your conclusion about not forcing images is well taken! Also, there are many modalities involved in images, as you say.

About the tree. I close my eyes and I am waiting. If nothing comes up I try to force an image om my mental screen. If that is un-succesful, I just wait for the mind to settle. What I discover is the fact that a tree does not enter on my screen like an icon or a photography. As a matter of fact it comes slowly and only in a context. It is like the mind is searching for a landscape where to plant the tree. If I force my memory about a specific tree I knew in my childhood I have the feeling of running through a tunnel full of random pixels. It is my past experience with the tree which comes to my mind but the image is still unformed. From time to time I may have the feeling that I see details, branches or leafs, but nothing really takes shape on the screen. Inside I know that I am there , close to that experience I had with the tree but still nothing happens. So, it is not the best day and time to do this. My conclusion is that a mental image needs several variables in order to take a form on the mental screen. It is a proccess which can not be forced. It is the mind which let you know when you are ready. Since our experience takes place in so many modalities the formation of a mental image is dependent by them too. It is progressive and slow, a fight with a prankish and tricky mental eraser.
Is anything I should be exited about after this failure? Yes. The fact that I felt that "I had the feeling that I have seen a mental image" is just dropping a bucket several feets under qualia.
Larry

That's amazing SJW, I'd love to know which component did the trick. If I suddenly acquired the ability to create mental pictures I have a feeling that, just like you, it would be such an amazing experience. The experience would probably be way more exciting than it is for people born with the ability as they've no doubt become so totally used to it.

Let us know if you ability remains unblocked

SJW: wow, lucky you! How long did your DVD experience last? Were you very sleepy?
I've been working intensively for several months to find clues about what is going wacky in my brain, causing inner blindness -- and your story provides a big clue. I've had the feeling that my brain has all the wiring needed, because I have a mental TV when I am asleep -- it turns off the moment I awaken. Your story seems to corroborate that theory -- apparently your brain is capable of seeing images, and a drug that induces a sleep state turned on your mental TV! That is so cool... I want it too!
The closest I've come to experiencing inner vision was a fe weeks ago when I had a dream in which I was sitting with my eyes closed, and I could see a picture in my head! It was a woman, like a shape cut out of a magazine, pasted on a black background -- liked something rather amateurly PhotoShopped... nothing like your big DVD experience, but I was thrilled nonetheless.
I just saw a neuropsychiatrist yesterday, who told me that because this is not a known medical condition, he can't help me in any way, goodbye and good luck - I'm going to call him and ask for Lunesta.
Let's stay in touch -- please let me know if you what happens when you take it again
Linda

Paulgfx: I checked out your altered photograph, and the one you speculate is like a mental image for people who can see mental images. (Very clever, by the way. I see about the same thing in my mind as you do when I try to picture a tree.) Anyway, see my earlier message. The image you are imagining other people can see is way off! I could see everything I was trying to image (because I was using that sleep relaxation technique "picture yourself in one of your favorities spots")as clearly as a DVD on your computer right in front of your face, and I could walk around it and my mind automatically gave the correct perspective. I'm like you -- I had no idea that people could re-create images in their minds like that. It was wild.

It is so odd that there is a blog (or whatever this kind of forum is called) about this issue. I have never been able to form a "mental picture" at all. When I close my eyes, I more or less see what you see when a television screen (especially the old-fashioned ones) are completely "snowy." There are lighter places that correspond (in a general way) to any paricularly bright objects in my view before I closed my eyes.

I first noticed this in a yoga class ("relax and picture yourself in your favorite place..."). I also noted it when I went to be hypnotized for insomnia. I can't "picture" my favorite places. I can think of them, but there is no visual accompanying the thought.

This is one of those things like "face blindness" which I read about in Wired magazine. Certain people (up to 2% of the population) can't identify faces. They live their lives normally because they automatically compensate, e.g., they know a particular person's gait, etc. Most people have no idea they have face blindness. (The syndrome has a name, but I can't remember it.) If I remember correctly, the article attributed the inability to distinguish faces to the lack of (or a diminishment of)a particular area of the brain. (A physical location.)

My point for writing is that last night for the first time I took a prescription sleep aid (something "estra," the one with the butterfly in the ad) and for the first time in my life I could form a mental picture. It was a blast! It was so real -- just like looking at a dvd. The thing I pictured was a tree -- but it was like being there.

This experience makes me really see that I cannot form mental images, and that when people used that phraase, they are describing something I'm (usually) not capable of.

I have no idea what is in that sleeping pill, but the effect of it seems to be that it either provided a neurotransmitter chemical thingie that I don't have, or unblocked a blocked one. Or maybe, like face blindness, there is an area of the brain that is responsible for doing that job, and mine is a failure. It makes you wonder what other odd differences there must exist in the way people perceive things. thinking all the while that everyone's perceptions are the same as theirs.

Anyway, the visualization was SO cool...very restful. I could imagine how someone could just sit and watch movies in their head all day. (I, unfortunately, evidently fell asleep...)

Has anyone else experienced this? Thoughts, comments?

Hi Tony,

I find it difficult to put into words exactly how I recall a face - It's definitely not an image on a visual plane, not even a blurred shadow - it's definitely not like sitting in front of a photo and describing it. I can instantly recognise a person in the real world so something is obviously working in the background that enables that recognition.

If you think about a computer displaying an image, to the user a picture appears on the screen. However, the computer is just seeing a stream of code. The code is just as valid a source of information to the computer as the image is to the user. Ultimately it's the same information read in different ways. if the computer had image recognition software linked to a web cam it would be able to use the code information contained in the image file to match a face and the user would use the visual image to achieve the same result.

I know this is a bit of a clumsy analogy and I'm not suggesting that nonimagers are like computers, but it seems like there's a slightly abstract process working behind the scenes in the mind of nonimagers!

Edited by author 06-29-2007 01:26 PM
Hi Tony. I took a picture of a tree (from a wikipedia) and I changed it to be a bit like how are my mental images are.
So, if I am trying to see a tree with my mind's eyes; this is the most I can get. In fact, I cannot even reproduce the fact that is much dimmer than this and that it dissapears very fast. But, still, somehow I can "work" with this, because I know that's a tree :)

As far I understood, the vivid imagers can see something like this this with mind's eyes while they are awake and think about a tree.
For vivid imagers: Please tell me if it's something like this (or more vivid?) or not.

Paul

Robb,

Re: 153

"...but the idea of that person's appearance is in my mind"

Can you elaborate, describe further?

Tony

Paul,

Re: 152.

"Even when I am thinking visually (at least what means "visually" for me), I see in my mind's eyes an extremely extremely blurred and dimmed thing.."

That would be having a mental image.

"I saw on net a theory (I cannot recall where, maybe you help me) that even non-visualizers (like me or Robb) *do visualize*, but the mental images are below the level of awarness."

That might have been here! But in any event thanks for that description and your hypothesis about how the mind works. An "image" below the level of awareness would not be an image (as I have used the term), but it might fit an Aristotelian view.

I don't know about any VVIQ averages, sorry.

Re: 151

ARE you missing anything? You can perform the same "tests" as everyone else. Your language describing your inner states is similar (I believe) to what some others may describe. The word "see" as applied to mental images is always in quotes.

Pylyshyn's view: http://www.gis.net/~tbirch/mi5b.htm

thank you for that link Paul. It sound like you experience things in a similar way to myself - although, unlike the blurred images you get, I don't get any visual imagery at all. My wife asked me what I see if I think about someone I know and my response was "nothing", but at the same time I have a recollection of that person. It's not a pictorial one and i can't easily go deeper into my recollection, but the idea of that person's appearance is in my mind. Perhaps Paul, what you say about the mental image being below conscious awareness is the answer. I do experience images in dreams so this would indicate that visualization is possible for me in a sleeping state.


Robb

Edited by author 06-28-2007 04:31 PM
Hi to all.

Robb, you asked if there is a way about becoming a imager. I have read about this method. I didn't tried it yet, but it looks very promising, because many completely non-imagers became very good imagers. Everything needed to do is described into webpages, and there is no need to buy anything.

Tony, I have look into your page and I did completed most of the tests (with the exception of the huge tyre).

It's hard to put in words how I am imaging things. Even when I am thinking visually (at least what means "visually" for me), I see in my mind's eyes an extremely extremely blurred and dimmed thing (the far peripheral vision when it's almost pitch dark is way more vivid than this); it's more an abstract thing, a structure. Even so, I can work with these and use them in my imagination. It's like working with pictures, which you cannot see them at all, but you just know they are there and have many times the correct results. I invented some things using this kind of visualization (if you can call this "visualization").
I saw on net a theory (I cannot recall where, maybe you help me) that even non-visualizers (like me or Robb) *do visualize*, but the mental images are below the level of awarness. This way I can explain why I can pass some visualising test without seeing almost anything in my mind; I guess that somehow, my mind produces and process the image but this is below my level of awareness. Above this level it's only the result and some very heavy blurred/dim remains of that mental images. In fact, sometimes I feel that I have a clear picture in head, but I cannot see it in my mind; it just feel it's effects (and the emotional response regarding it).

P.S. There are available statistics of VVIQ results? Only thing I have seen that the average mean is about 2.5 (between clear and moderately clear mental image). I would like to see more data about this.
Paul
[edit] replaced type "image" with "imager"

Edited by author 06-28-2007 03:34 PM
Hi Tony,

I'm new to all of this and still slightly shellshocked by the growing realisation that I'm missing out on a skill that most people seem to posess, so if it's possible to put it in a nutshell, what is Pylyshyn's theory?

Robb,

Re: 149
Very interesting. I do not think the designer of this test envisioned this type of response. This demonstrates why subjective reports are valuable for psychology, and further supports my contention that we need to go adopt some of the attitudes of pre-behaviorist and pre-computational psychology.

I think some would still assert, however, that the test is definitive. Since you can answer the question, there is a "cognitive image" (one which operates in the mental machinery of the mind) involved. The subjective experience may or may not correspond. One can argue about whether "image" is the correct term to use if this is the case. However, I believe reports like yours further supports theories similar to Pylyshyn's regarding the nature of cognitive machinery.

Edited by author 06-28-2007 02:01 PM
No problem with that one either - if I think of an simplified block font it would be 11 (internal and external) - what i'm finding I do is a sort of mental dot to dot - I can feel myself mentally moving from one corner to the next but it's almost like using an invisible pen, i don't get a visual of the letter at the beginning, during or end of the exercise. Perhaps this method of thought is relating directly to how I'd move my pen whilst I draw

Robb,

Hmm...so you had no trouble counting the corners on shapes such as letters? Can you count the corners on the capital letter that follows the letter J without much problem?

Tony

Thanks for the response Tony, I've tried the experiments and managed to complete the majority quite successfully - apart from the projected one which confused me, and the last 'thought' one about the tyre. I passed the Eidetic one after a fashion, as I predicted what the final image would be from the first picture. However, the only part of the test that I had a cognitive image from was the "After-Image" where the colours were effectively "Burnt" in. All of the others were achieved without the actually getting any visual images, instead I had an almost intelectual awareness of the shapes... if that makes any sense to you!?@!

With regard to drawing helping in mental imaging, I have a degree in illustration and work as a graphic designer and posess the ability to draw things from memory, but I have no obvious visual reference running in my mind to work from. The only way I can describe to my friends on how I can do this is that I just "know" what a thing looks like.

I have the same with music. I have work ocassionally as a freelance composer, and when I create a melody I kind of automatically know what the full piece will sound like with all of the instruments arranged on it - I don't actually hear the full thing but I can hum the harmonies straight off if i need to.

This whole non-imaging thing is all new to me. I honestly did'nt realise that the majority of people have a completely different thought experience, so I'm in a state of slight bewilderment almost as though everyone around me see's a fourth dimension that I'm totally unaware of.

Robb

Rob and Paul,

Again thanks so much for posting. Your descriptions of your mental life match a growing number. I am not surprised that drawing helps, since I believe that the nervous/mental/physical system is much more highly integrated than is generally understood. For example, some people move their hands -- as if manipulating an object -- when solving a mental imagery problem.

If you have the time (and it does not take long!), please take try my mental imagery tests on this page: http://www.gis.net/~tbirch/hp5.html

You will see the following section:

------------------------------------
On-line Experiments

Imagery Types:
After-images Eidetic Hallucinogenic Memory
Imagination Imagination/Memory Projected Thought

--------------------------------------

Some are just thought experiments, but some are real "tests" with answers.

I have had some "non-imagers" indicate that they feel the tests are not relevant to their experience, so the tests really don't indicate anything. I assume this means that they can perform these tasks fairly well, yet they feel they don't have normal imagery abilities. Other non-imagers have reported that they have difficulty with some tasks.

(Naturally, most "fail" the eideticism test -- but I think this is somewhat flawed as a test in any case. You don't need to report "failure" on this. Also, you don't need to report "I have no memory or imagination images," since you have already done that.)

How about the Projected Imagery test? No one has reported on that.

Apparently, most people just sail through most of these tasks and wonder "what's the problem -- these are too easy!"

If you have anything significant to report, please put up a brief post.

Tony

Hurrah... I'm not alone. I have spent my life thinking everyone thought in the same way that I did, but a couple of days ago, whilst watching a psychic on TV describing what he was seeing, I asked my wife how she thought he actually saw these things. She casually said "I suppose it's like the mental picture you see when you think about something". I didn't understand what she meant so I asked her to explain what she meant. She went on to describe that if she thought about an object or person, she gets a clear visual image in front of her, placed just above her brow level. I thought she meant when she had her eyes closed but she meant with her eyes open. It was such an accepted way to experience her thoughts she assumed everyone thought that way.

I thought my wife must have some strange and very special ability so I mentioned it to my work colleagues. They were absolutely amazed that I didn't get mental images when I thought about something... it turns out that I seem to be the odd one out. They couldn't begin to conceive how I could think about something without getting mental pictures - even more so as I'm an illustrator who can general create a drawing of most things from my imagination.

To be honest I can't even describe how I recall a memory of something other than to say I just "know" it. Sometimes I'll have a dialogue attatched to the thought but images don't form a part of that process at all.... let alone presenting themselves in my waking state!

I feel somewhat distressed at discovering that the majority of people have this visual imagery and I don't, now I feel almost like I am missing out on one of my primary senses. I'm very interested in a lot of so called "new age" techniques and they all glibly ask you to visualise something or other. I now realise that there is an preconceived acceptance that everyone can ceate mental images Without this ability I don't even get off the ground with it.

If anyone out there has any ideas on how you can cultivate or rediscover this ability I'd be extremely interested in finding out more about it

Tony, thanks for your answers. Regarding dreams, not only few dreams are hallucinations, but almost all dreams (while sleeping) are true hallucinations, because for the dreamer, it looks that the images comes from outside and not from his mind (i.e. the dreamed landscape/person/object looks like it's really in front of the eyes and not "inside the head", even if the image, sometimes, is blurred (like in the peripheral vision)). This is true for lucid dreams,too. The interesting thing is that almost every mental sane person hallucinate few hours a day (while sleeping) and not knowing this :).

About the mental imagery:
In waking life, I have an extremely poor mental imagery, I "see" only very very blurred/dim things. I cannot picture cleary in my mind even my family members or something I see every day.
But, when I go to sleep, sometimes, quite "vivid" images are formed in my mind for few split-seconds (vivid from my point of view: still very blurred, but much less blurred than usual).

Few times, this happened (after few hours a sleep):
I went back to sleep. Mental images started to form; they was not "in front of eyes", but somewhere in my mind. They became more and more vivid. After a time (after I fallen asleep), these images was not longer in my mind, but was "in front of my eyes": the dream started. This helped me to understand the subjective difference between vivid mental imagery and hallucinations. After few seconds when the dream started, I awoken. Instantly, anything "in front of my eyes" and any mental imagery stopped.

For me, it was very interesting to find out that most people can have vivid mental images *while awake*. For vivid imagers, it's interesing to find out how I am able to think without using mental imagery (or having very very blurred and dim mental imagery).
Before asking few vivid imagers about this, I thought that everyone thinks like me (w/o using mental images; or thinking that "mental imagery" means just some very vague/blurred structures, which are more abstract than visual). Also, for them, they thought that everyone thinks like them (i.e. that everyone has vivid imagery) and that's strange that persons w/o mental imagery exists.

To see how big difference here is a quote from a discussion group. He was a non-imager which became a imager.

At first: "I have a similar condition - if you read dfan's link above, it describes me almost perfectly. Anytime someone says "picture yourself on a beautiful island" or "picture yourself doing x" my mind boggles. I can remember those situations, give you a list of experiences they contain in detail, or answer questions about them, but I don't "picture" anything in my head.".

After he learned to draw he became a visualizer. Here is what he said:
I've also noticed, since I started drawing, that I'll have occasional flashes of pictures in my head based on my train of thought - the sort of thing that I imagine happens quite often for most people. It's unremarkable and routine for them, but for me it's like I'm having a seizure or hallucinating - "whoa! there's a PICTURE in my HEAD!"

Paul

Paul,

Thanks for the post. I like your red triangle experiment. My image corresponds to triangle number 5.

You state:
"I found many studies that confirm the fact that mental images are formed in the part of the brain (occipital lobe) where it's used on the actual sight, but, somehow, the brain knows that it's "from inside"."

Quite true! And a very useful way to think about it. When you have a hallucination, you DON'T know it's from inside! Some dreams are like that -- that is why they are classified as a form of hallucination (see the categories listed in several parts of my pages).

Tony

Hi.
I am very interested about this topic. Me too I want to grasp more about mental imagery.
Doing my research on net I found some interesting things.
1) Linda, for your question "Is there anyone on the planet who has made the shift from total non-imager to seeing something, anything on a mental screen?",I found on the net a way to become a visualizer (even if you are not a visualizer). I don't know if it's really efective, because I found out recently about this. Many claims that is is extremely effective and quick method to develop visualization abilities, even if, at the start, the "mental screen" is completely blank. It is called: "Image streaming" (google for this).
2) I found many studies that confirm the fact that mental images are formed in the part of the brain (occipital lobe) where it's used on the actual sight, but, somehow, the brain knows that it's "from inside". Also, was found a objective way to measure the visualization abilities. If you are interested, I can drop here some links to pdf of the studies.
3) I opened a topic, on dreamviews ( http://www.dreamviews.com/community/showthread.php?t=37836 ) about this. Many people claimed that, they can visualize very vivid an red triangle.

For visualizers: Please answer to other Linda's questions, beacuse I am really interested about the answers.

I suffer myself, too, about the lack of interest of my family/friends about this subject, so this topic is very helpfull for me too.

Paul

Thanks Tony for your quick response.
I must admit that I am still stymied by the questions that I have. I still cannot grasp this concept that people are actually seeing mental images with their eyes open. Are these images superimposed over the physically-perceived images, or in place of those images? That is, if you are experiencing a mental image with your eyes open, are you blind to what is happening in front of your eyes? Doesn't that cause problems?
I have so many questions, and so few answers. I've asked these questions of friends, but I still don't get answers -- people seem to not take these questions seriously, and quickly change the subject. I read and read research papers on mental imagery, but research papers don't address the basic issues: what are people seeing in their imaginations, and how are those images used as data? Not in an research setting, performing experimental tasks, but on a daily basis. Is all thought accompanied by images for people who see mental images? What reasoning processes rely on images? What recall processes rely on images? Is my lack of imagery the reason I remember almost nothing from my childhood? Why is my mental screen blank? Is there anyone on the planet who has made the shift from total non-imager to seeing something, anything on a mental screen? Why do people who study mental imagery persist in equating lack of imagery with poor/weak imagery? (These are qualitatively different states -- I would be thrilled with the weakest image possible).
I really need to talk to someone who can discuss these issues. My friends can't, my family can't. One of my oldest friends is a cognitive/visual/neuroscientist, and he can't even shed any light on this subject -- he just refers me to papers about people who have partial imagery deficits, or people who have lost imagery due to brain damage.
I am very frustrated. Who has information about congenital lack of imagery? Is there anyone who is willing to talk to me about this stuff?
thanks
Linda
Is there anyone who would be willing to spend some time talking to me about this?

Linda,
As the owner/operator (for those who don't know) of this list, I encourage your use of it. I hope others respond.

1. Strong images at least a couple times per hour. If focused on certain tasks, generally no images.

2. Imagery accompanies reading in various intensities. Example: when the author describes a scene or event using a stunning image. Reading of abstract theory in economics, politics, education, philosophy generally has no image. (I believe I have covered this using some examples in my web pages.)

3. Yes, I am having images of related and non-related things while having a conversation. Sometimes these are just reminders of topics or ideas to bring up in conversation. Other times they are "induced" by the conversation -- similar to what happens in reading.

4. In cases of eidetic images, the image takes over the visual field (as I have mentioned in my pages). Otherwise, no. The "seeing" is just that -- "seeing" in quotes. Hopefully, no one is confused by what is meant by those who say they "see" mental images. It is "like" real seeing. Having a mental image is quasi-sensory or quasi-perceptual. The definition I have given of mental images (following Richardson) clarifies this: http://www.gis.net/~tbirch/mi4.htm

5. It's a safety issue, if you are a strong day-dreamer. In my case, there is no "blocking" of sensory input per se, but (again as Richardson points out) attention can turn inward. Ordinary vision in any case is NOT what you think it is. You do not have simultaneous input of "everything" in front of you. Your eyes can only focus on a very small area -- a couple of degrees -- the rest is a synthesis created by brain activity.

6. The various tests I have show how this works. There are some tasks that invite you to conjure up an image to solve a problem. Some images occur "naturally," without effort, others have to be constructed for a purpose.

7. Well, that is their choice and the method they like -- and it corresponds to certain aspects of the scientific method. Others (e.g., psychotherapists, traditional psychologists) spend a great deal of time talking to people about what kinds of images they have.

oops, one more question:
If you completely lost the ability to see mental images -- i.e. you could not see any color, shape, face, object, nothing at all -- what sort of a difference would it make in your life, in your reasoning processes, in your memory? What would be missing for you functionally?
Linda

Hi again, I apologize for using this space to ask what seem to be ignorant questions about mental imagery, but I can't find any other way to get answers to these questions. I've been trying to piece together an understanding of how people use mental visual imagery, based on the clues that I have, but my understanding is still very incomplete. I am asking because I have no mental visual imagery whatsoever, and feel a need to understand what I'm missing.
So if anyone can answer any of these questions, it would be a big help:

1. Is mental imagery something that happens a couple of times a day, a couple of times an hour, a couple of times a minutes, or continuously?
2. Someone said to me recently: how is it possible for you to read literature if you can't see it? This completely blew my mind, because I love literature and have devoured it for years (though I can't remember what I read a hour later...). How does visual imagery relate to reading? Do people see images of the things they are reading about? Do they see images with eyes open, while in the process of reading, or do they stop reading and look at mental images? Eyes open, or eyes closed?
3. Someone said to me recently: how is it possible for you to understand metaphor? Same question as above: does that mean that people are seeing images of topics of conversation? While they are looking me in the eye and talking to me? How is this possible? Are people seeing images of other things while they are talking to me -- e.g. gazing at the Taj Mahal while we are talking about dinner plans?
4. If people are seeing mental images with eyes open, are they also seeing physical objects in front of them at the same time, or does mental imagery take over the physical visual field?
5. If people are seeing mental images and physical images at the same time (i.e. with eyes open), where are the mental images being displayed? In the same visual field as the mental images -- i.e. superimposed somehow? or in some other field?
6. If people can see mental images with eyes open, are they doing this while driving? How is that possible? Is this a safety issue?
7. Do people have to try to conjure up mental images, or does it happen effortlessly? If you have to try, what do you do to try to make it happen?
8. Why do neuroscientists who study mental imagery NOT study people like me who have none?
Again, I apologize for naivete of questions, but I would really like to know.
Gracias
Linda

Now that we are on this subject, it happend that weeks ago I received for review a novel from a member of the Chicago Consciousness Group. His first chapter describe two groups of people passing in opposite directions over the Michigan Ave. bridge:

" Hidden In Plain Sight.

One has to wonder if the world is running out of places to
hide its atrocities. It’s easy to imagine a time when cameras
will be everywhere, and then our eyes will be everywhere. We’ll
have the ultimate satellite coverage, no doubt with the power to
read every last infrared wave of every last being, as well as to
stare down into every last strand of DNA if we wanted to.
But then, one can only wonder what we might choose to see
when we have the power to see everything.
Today, our collective cameras most often choose to see
death. You can hardly argue with this orientation, even if it
is morbid. Death does turn up everywhere we look.

Casual observers might note that even in this day and age,
murderers, terrorists, and their ilk, have few options but to
make their private business public. One might even go so far as
to say that Death has run out of places to hide its crimes.
Some would beg to differ, perhaps contending that it’s all
a matter of perspective. From this point of view, at least
theoretically, anything can be hidden in plain sight provided
that nobody is looking, or nobody knows where to look and when
to look, or perhaps most importantly, nobody knows how to look.
If we can take that much for granted, then it is entirely
conceivable that atrocities on even the grandest possible scale
might go unnoticed. In fact, that was exactly the case on a
weirdly warm October evening on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, as
unlikely a place as any to hide a mass murder, much less one
that might have an unlimited impact due to its viral nature.
This particular crime happened at the witching hour. A row
of unchaperoned kids sporting hefty jack-o-lantern heads leaned
over the side of Chicago’s Michigan Avenue Bridge to steal a
look at the river. The early trick-or-treaters saw nothing
below them. The fog was far too thick to see anything.
Just then, a few hot and humid hiccups of putrid white
smoke wormed their way into the childrens’ noses, which they all
quickly turned away. As they ran off to the north end of the

avenue, they crossed paths with a group of four adults going in
the opposite direction -- three men and one woman.
The smell seemed to slow down the four adults, but only for
a moment. They continued southbound over what had now become a
Bridge of the Dead. A jumble of tangled arms and legs bobbed up
and down in the water beneath the bridge. The interlocked limbs
were burning from the inside out as if charcoal had gutted them.
If a camera were present, it would have seen these
unfortunate appendages disappear in an instant so as to seem to
spontaneously combust. Some final infinitesimally small flecks
of light flashed in the air and then vanished in the fog.
One moment they were human jack-o-lanterns, and the next
moment, they were not. Only the muddy residue of their remains
whirlpooled away into the river.
They were gone. This was plain enough to see. However,
what wasn’t so clear was exactly to whom did these sad parts
once belong? Perhaps more importantly, who committed this
heinous act, and how many more victims might there be?
They obviously were bold enough to commit their crimes in
public, but even worse, they were accomlished enough to hide
them in plain sight. Such boldness knows no bounds..."

While reading the text I had the mental image of the bridge with a bird eye view from North towards South. It was the first image which hit my mental screen. It seems that the written word, which mentions clearly that the kids on the bridge were heading North did not change my point of mental view. I consider this somehow odd, since my mental images usual are cast on the screen according to the subliminal instructions given by the written command.
Larry

Peter, I had two applications on "MentalScreen", approved minutes ago, I assume one was yours. In case you have any questions or truble getting on the site please let me know.
Larry

Tony,

I can only 'know' the upside down image of 'A' but cannot visualize when my eyes is closed.

I can't even tell you the color of my dreams (black/white or color) or how many because I don't think there is any images in my dreams.

When I am thinking, I can only use voice but there is no images on my mind.

I am still waiting the approval to join Larry's group and I will tell you the results after trying the on-line experences.

Peter

Peter - Thanks for posting. Some information has already been posted in response to a question like yours at Larry's group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Mentalscreen/message/254
(You may have to join the group to read the messages, starting at #254)

As for my suggestions: Can you visualize the letters of the alphabet with your eyes closed? (I suppose this may strike you as an absurd question if you are a non-imager, and you have trouble remembering words -- but I thought I would ask.) If so, try visualizing each one as its mirror image. I find this to be a useful mental exercise. Also, upside down.

You might also try the many tests and exeriments I have listed on my web site under the "Starting Points -- Online Experiments" section. I would like to know if you have difficulty with any of these, as Linda reported below.

Linda - Great questions! Hope you get some answers and will share some of your findings!

Tony

Edited by author 05-13-2007 08:59 AM
Just want to know if there is any method to train a "nonimager" to visualize images? (My mental TV has NEVER been on and I have difficulty in remembering words.)

Hi Folks,
Since this is a forum for mental imagery, I don't want to monopolize space by talking about the absence of mental imagery... however would like to connect with other non-imagers, to discuss:
 - do you find it depressing to realize how differently/easily other people retrieve memories/information with visual images?
 - what is your understanding of the differences/magnitude of difference between the cognitive processes of imagers vs. nonimagers?
 - in what specific ways do you think that we compensate mentally for lack of video?
 - how/when did you discover that most other people go around with extensive mental video experiences as part of their daily lives?
 - were you born prematurely?
 - do you know anyone else like this?
 - are you interested in doing some study of brain activity of non-imagers? (I have neurological scientist friends who are interested in studying my non-imaging brain, and additional data points would be welcome)

By "nonimager" I mean this:
I understand that among imagers, there seem to be varying degrees of capability -- there are some people whose mental TVs don't receive as many channels, or they have lots of static, or their cable goes out occasionally, or they are not able to get the movies they want on demand. By nonimaging, I am referring to those of us whose mental TV has NEVER been on -- the screen has always been blank, the mental video feature has never been enabled -- you would be astonished and overjoyed to see the color blue when you close your eyes, or to see someone's face... or anything else other than blankness.
Gracias
Linda

If you would like to discuss, please reply here or better email me at lindagert@gmail.com.

For my non-imager friends, a link which can prove to be a real stimulating exercise:

http://expandedcinema.blogspot.com/2006/11/viking-eggeling.html

Larry

Edited by author 04-15-2007 12:56 AM
There are such an abundance of examples of imagers and hallucinators in the world of arts and so few examples of the contrary. This disscution about absence of imagery really stired up an interest in me. When we see things, we see them differently. Simple things , like watching the clouds or the stars. Does a non-imager feel different when is doing visual associations ? Like reading in coffe? Is it possible that I "see" more beyond an image which isn't representational, a Malevich, Rothko or Pollock?

Larry

http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast.../fr1201/rcfr13b.htm

Larry,

Thanks for the Shakespeare! In a related vein, here is an excerpt from a student paper recently submitted to my wife. The student recounts her experience of allowing imagination images to aid her in "seeing" a musical performance that was blocked from her view by large man wearing a black coat...she simply stared at the coat and allowed images and thoughts to come as they would:

"...the experience reminded me of the purpose behind Malevich's Black Square: that one could get lost in the emotion, generating an image on any type canvas and that pictures don't always have to be painted for you."

HAMLET
Do you see nothing there?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

HAMLET
Nor did you nothing hear?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
No, nothing but ourselves.

HAMLET
Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he lived!
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!
Summary
Exit Ghost

QUEEN GERTRUDE
This the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.

HAMLET
Ecstasy!
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within, (3.4.148)
Infects unseen.

Of course Linda. From time to time, you see normal people with a fixed gaze looking to nothing in particular, and you wonder what are they thinking about? They are in a park, cemetery, in a library or bathtub, usually lost in their internal movies. They are not dreaming, they are daydreaming with wide-open eyes. They are normal people seeing things in their head. Pathological cases are disturbing but reveal some paradoxes about the workings of the mind. One of them is to see yourself or a part of your body outside the limits of your body, like having a permanent companion of yourself. Is not funny. How can explain science such a phenomenon? Alternatively, to see a moving object frozen in one instance without realizing that the object moved away a long time ago. It is almost as if reality is a videotape in your head and suddenly stopped. This are documented clinical cases, not some sort of lalaland stories. To see mental images with the naked eye is more frequent than we are aware.

thanks Larry -- but do people who are not meditating with open eyes, or sitting in dark, or having schizo hallucinations see mental visual images with their eyes open? I mean, like when you're just walking down the street?
Linda

Dear Linda regarding your question:

Here is a naive-sounding question which would only be posed by a non-imager: do imagers see mental visual images with their eyes open? If so, how is that possible? How can the visual field be shared by external images and internal images simultaneously? If not, then how could there be a debate about whether imageless thought exists? That is, if mental images only arise with eyes closed, then all thought with eyes open must be imageless... or is there something I'm missing here? Those alleged imagers reading this can fill me in...

My answer is yes. Schizofrenics have hallucinations with wide open eyes, some Buddhists meditators are meditating with open eyes while focusing on a kasina, a mental image of an object or mandala. Another observation is related to the ambient luminosity. In a dark room you do not have to close your eyes to invite a mental image on your mental screen. A good exercise is to stay in a pitch dark room for several hours. In the absence of visual stimulus the mind will start fabricating more images than you can think about.

Paul,
     Thanks for feedback. Your comments about linguistics are fun for me, because I happen to have a Ph.D. in linguistics. Like you, I am highly verbal and articulate. And my thought processes seems to be mostly verbal, also emotional and kinesthetic. Chances are I became very attracted to linguistics as a teenager because I was relying so heavily on verbal thought, so developed acute instincts about language. Because I've learned lots of languages, I have a reputation for being a "good" language learner -- people think I have some special talent for this. I think it's actually harder for me, because there is no visual memory -- I require endless amounts of repetition before words/phrases/grammar actually stick.
   By the way, I never knew that linguistics is considered "the most advanced of all the social and psychological sciences!" Good news for us linguists :-)
   I do have to have to mention that there are sociolinguistic methods to determine what is considered grammatical, without reliance on introspective reports: you can analyze linguistic usages vis a vis cultural contexts, i.e. knowing that newspapers, non-fiction books, teacher usage, etc. all try to perpetuate grammatical standards in their usage gives us clues as to the grammatical standards of a society.
   Enough linguistics then. Here is a naive-sounding question which would only be posed by a non-imager: do imagers see mental visual images with their eyes open? If so, how is that possible? How can the visual field be shared by external images and internal images simultaneously? If not, then how could there be a debate about whether imageless thought exists? That is, if mental images only arise with eyes closed, then all thought with eyes open must be imageless... or is there something I'm missing here? Those alleged imagers reading this can fill me in...
   Here's what I'm struggling with these days: Up until the age of thirty-something I never knew that people could really see visual mental imagery -- I thought they were speaking metaphorically when they talked about seeing someone's face, or seeing a color, or envisioning themselves in a sunlit meadow. Then I discovered my husband could actually conjure up images in his mind. So I thought that he was some exceptional individual with a special gift, like ESP. I also imagined that those special people only had pictures in their brains when they worked on conjuring up some image. I was in my mid forties when I discovered that in fact, it is commonly thought that all people do this regularly and effortlessly -- it is just a natural part of their daily life. It has only been more recenly, in my fifties, that I've realized that visual images may constitute the primary component of many thought processes for many/most people -- which means that my thought processes are fundamentally different. It was a huge shock to me to find that cognitive scientists debate whether my form of thought even exists -- that indicates a huge difference in cognitive processsing. Although it makes me feel cognitively handicapped, I also realize that I must have considerably different/stronger verbal capabilities than others. But the realization that my thought processes are so radically different sometimes freaks me out. What freaks me out even more is the realization that I never even knew this for close to 50 years. On the few occasions that I've talked to friends about this, their responses feel very dismissive to me, probably because they can't even imagine the enormity of what I'm describing, so they don't understand the impact it has on me.
   Paul, you questioned whether it is possible to induce mental imagery in nonimagers in a heightened state of awareness, e.g. hypnotic trance. I have some experience with this, not with formal hypnosis, but rather with trance-inducing bodywork. I studied massage and energy healing at the Esalen Institute, where they teach a bodywork approach where you establish the client's healing intention for the session, then guide the client into a trance state during the massage, which is a state that is receptive to the healing intention held by the client and the therapist. So I have frequently been in a trance state in this context (as a client), and have never experienced visual imagery. I do have the opportunity to play around with this a bit with some friends in Michigan who do cognitive research with FMRI -- I would like to find out what is happening in terms of brain activity in me vs. in mental imagers.
   I had a client last week who booked a 60-minute massage session. I did 60 minutes of Esalen massage. When we finished, she said to me, rather tentatively, I had an interesting experience while you were working on me. I asked what happened. She told me that she thought she was reliving a past life, it was like sometimes watching herself in a movie, and sometimes embodying herself in this movie. She was awake, conscious of what I was doing and conscious of the music I was playing -- she mentioned that the music I used had ocean sounds in it, which conflicted with the inland, snowy scene that she was experiencing in her "movie". I asked during what part of the massage this happened. She responded, the whole time! She said it started the moment my hands made contact with her body, and continued throughout the massage. She knew the massage was over because the "movie" ended. And here's the kicker: it was her first massage ever! Now she's going to think that massage is always like that - maybe it will be for her. This is an example of the kinds of things that happen in the trance state of Esalen massage -- her report is not unusual, only in its duration of 60 minutes! Am I jealous? Absolutely...
   I was just looking in my bookcase for the Dalai Lama's book, Destructive Emotions, which chronicles a conference that the Dalai Lama convened with several scientists. Unfortunately I can't find the book, but there is brief mention of an FMRI experiment done with visualization during meditation, using experienced meditators. He mentions that for about half of the meditators, when asked to visualize something during meditation, there was no activity in the visual cortex (I will look for that book at the bookstore to try to verify this). When I discussed this with my friend Li, who does neurological research and is also an avid meditator, I asked her whether this indicates that around 50% of the population are nonimagers. She said no, (in fact I'm the first she's ever known) -- it isn't known whether mental visualization is correlated with visual cortex activity. She suggested though that maybe there is a disproportionate number of nonimagers within the ranks of successful meditators because we are hard-wired for non-distraction. (Mediation for me is easy as pie.). So I wonder what else we are hardwired to excel at?
Linda

That may be right Tony, is what I thought, but is something which happens beyond my exercise to put markers on it, the bloody jokes just do not stick to me even with mnemotechnics. I found an interesting review about auditive hallucinations:

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-FiqT2e89erSnw0yosuP_EFqQrryYLifi

with them is different, when is raining, sometimes I feel the drops on me even when I am inside the house or the car.

Larry,
That would be the same as me. Some improvement was obtained by listening to the Prairie Home Companion joke CD.
Ollie and Sven were out fishing. After all day of nothing, suddenly they started catching like crazy. Ollie took out his knife and started to carve a notch in the gunnel. "What are you doing?" "I'm marking this spot -- we gotta come back here."
But, more seriously, do you think it is a matter of conceptual priorities? Your own suggestion of modal priorities may be of use here.
Tony

Tony I can't remeber jokes. I am not kidding, I can listen to hundreds of jokes, read them and soon they wipe out like I am set to forget them instantly. What is this?
Larry

Thanks, Everyone, for the recent posts. It's been very informative.

Larry B. P. (115): Thanks again for this post. I had originally remarked something along the lines that certainly there is an element of the social construction of reality (Wittgenstein, and most recently and more importantly, "constructivism" in online education) that we should consider in discussions of mental imagery. I hope to attend the School of the Visual Arts conference again this year, where the various mappings of visual and cultural norms are always a topic.

Paul (118): Yes, scary and sometimes annoying. Larry V. has mentioned his lack of imagery in all modalities. I have auditory imaginings/memories of music (especially when trying to learn new music or after a good concert) that make it sometimes difficult for me to engage in "light" conversation. My "abilities" here are quite limited however. Mozart is said to have been able to reproduce 20 minutes of music after one hearing.

Paul (119): Thanks so much for this instructive quote from Baars! I will have to find a place for a link to this and his work. It's interesting that he finds this problem in "all varieties of scientism in psychology." This would certainly extend, in my view, to some aspects of Cognitive Science, which, while claiming to "reassert" the mind and inner (subjective) mental realities and processes, also proceeded to use empirical methods derived from behaviorism to "test and measure" the "mechanisms" of the mind/brain complex. That is why I was critical of some (not all) of the interpretations of results in the early stages of empirical cognitive science. Your critique and characterization of behaviorism (ignoring the mind -- with pride!) is quite correct.

Regarding your conclusion about blindsight that "At a very, very general level, something analogous must be going on with those who can form conscious visual mental images from data stored in memory, and those who cannot," I tried to express a similar conclusion (using Pylyshyn's ideas) in a previous post to Linda. And, as I also indicated, lived experience, subjective reports, and data always need to be considered in science (following Wundt and others).

Larry V. (119): Larry, welcome and thanks for the link to this cool web site. Not much time to review the site yet, but the idea is good! Your idea of compensation in modalities seems to plug in to the post by Larry B. P.

Regards to all,

Tony

Guys, check this out:

http://www.omidyar.net/user/u144203279/

One defining feature: I lack mental imagery in all sensory modalities - I have no inner visualizations, I hear no inner music, I experience no virtual body motions when watching dance, etc. I have no concrete (sensory) rememberances of my past. This limitation has been compensated for by unique assets for conceptualizing complex and dynamic alternative futures.
Long ago I earned two PhDs (Physics, Yale 1965 and Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota 1970), but am a lifelong, transdisciplinary learner. In 1997 I retired after 23 years of teaching Intro Psych and Futures Studies at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona. My habitat is in Tucson.
I started interacting online via computers in 1984, and have been active since. Omidyar.net manifests a dream of more than a decade. Thank you.
I have been a non-violent societal change activist since 1957.

     
     Wow. Tony says seeing mental images can be 'scary.' That is SOOO far out of my experience.

     I think a big advantage of being a 'verbal only' thinker is that one find's it extremely easy to verbalize on the spot. I am never at a loss for words, and others have often complemented me on how well spoken I am.

     Well, I SHOULD be. I am practicing rhetoric every moment I am awake. I 'hear' myself speaking, inside my own mind, almost constantly, accept when listening to the words of others. In one way or another, my consciousness is always processing verbal data.

   Hi Tony -

      You seem to be referring to behavorism when you speak of a strictly empiricist' psychology'. Behavorism is pretty much dead. Chomsky points out the fundamentally 'religious' or 'ideological' nature of behaviorism, and all 'empiricisms' and scientism of this sort.

      A very interesting work is Bernard Baars' (1986) historical volume, The Cognitive Revolution in Psychology. It includes interviews with a couple dozen of psychology's leading practitioners, persons who were instrumental in the overthrow of the behaviorist ideology.

     You might be interested in this rather 'philosophical' comment from Baars:

    "It is one of those great ironies that a scientific devotion to empirical fact led scientific physicalists to deny facts that can be tested and observed in everyday life. It is important to be reminded, in this regard, that behaviorists and other physcialists saw themselves as an IDEALISTIC vanguard, struggling against superstition and its hold on the human mind. If it was necessary to deny some apparent phenomenon such as purpose, this was a temporary price to pay to establish a truly scientific study of humanity. The denial of consciousness and purpose had a curiously paradoxical air about it. The commonsense view of human psychology is so strong and perhaps so fundamentally true, that physicalists found themselves asserting in their actions precisely what they were denying in words - attempting, as it were, to make their opponents conscious of the fact that consciousness does not exist; having as a goal the extension of a scientific philosophy that denies the existence of goals. All varieties of scientism in psychology have this air of paradox, and behaviorism does so to an extraordinary degree: many behaviorists believed that beliefs were not believable, they thought that thought was unthinkable, they had a theory of human beings who cannot have theories, and so on" (p. 28).

   How can we define what happens IN my mind, in terms of what happens OUTSIDE my mind? How can a MENTAL image I have be said to consist, or not exist, based on the MATERIAL results of some test is external to my mental life?

     I am not offended at all by your skepticism regarding introspective report. I think it is healthy to be skeptical about introspective data.

     However, as more and more introspective data accumulates, it becomes apparent that a great many people report NOT having conscious mental images. If one continues to reject the introspective reports of so many subjects, then I guess one is forced to ignore ALL introspective data as inherently unreliable. (By the way, that would pretty much doom scientific linguistics, where the primary data are the introspective reports of native speakers regarding which utterances seem to them to be 'grammatical,' and which do not. Yet linguistics is perhaps the most advanced of all the social and psychological sciences).

    Empiricist/behaviorist psychologists did not try to tell people what was 'in their minds,' based on 'empirical' data. How could a behaviorist know what is IN my mind better than I know it?

    Instead, behaviorists just claimed that ALL introspective data were outside the purview of science. So, they sought functional laws that linked environmental conditions to behavior. They IGNORED mind, but they never went so far as to claim that the behavior they observed gave them a better ability to know the consciousness of a subject than that subject himself or herself had.

    Researchers working on the problem of blindsight did not wait until a large population of blindsighted individuals was available to them before they accepted the reality of the introspective reports they were offered. Working with one or two brain-injured cases, they formed a very plausible, and now widely accepted, theory of this condition. Sight and blindsight, they claim, are two forms of dealing with visual input. In sight, a conscious visual image is formed. In blindsight, visual input occurs, but no CONSCIOUS image is formed.

     At a very, very general level, something analogous must be going on with those who can form conscious visual mental images from data stored in memory, and those who cannot.

     I don't think it helps much to explain-away the difference between those who can form conscious mental images, and those who cannot form them, by re-defining 'mental image' in terms of NON-mental, external, behavioral test results.

   Linda - Interesting comments. I also hold a Ph.D. (Stanford), and, as you know, I also do not see visual mental images when awake.

   I would not say I 'see black' when my eyes are closed. Instead, I guess what I 'see' when my eyes are closed is the back of my eyelids. That is, apparently even when my eyes are closed my consciousness remains focused upon whatever stimuli are coming from the retina.

   If I close my eyes on a bright, sunny day, I 'see' a kind of unstable orange 'fog.' If I close my eyes in a very dark room, I 'see' an unstable, blacker 'fog,' one that is 'etched' with diffuse, unclear silver /white dots, dashes and lines. This silver/white 'etching' is unstable and mobile, and it increases if I push with my fingers against my eyes.

   I am guessing that what is going when my eyes are closed is that my conscious attention remains focused on the input from the retina.

     If you 'see black' under any and all conditions with your eyes closed, isn't THAT, in itself, a form of mental imaging?

     What do you 'see' if you look toward the sun on a bright day, with your eyes closed? I think what I am 'seeing' might be the sunlight penetrating through the eyelids and hitting the retina.

     I do NOT see, and never have seen, any sort of 'picture' in a mind's eye during my waking hours. I found it just as incredible as you did when I was confronted by others who told me they could 'imagine' pictures in their heads!

     We non-imagers MUST be using visual-input data that is stored in long-term memory. How could we recognize a familiar face, if we did not have a stored image to which we could compare the currently-viewed face? But, apparently, we are using the data we pull up out of long-term memory without engaging the neural processes that produce a CONSCIOUS mental image.

     I tried the tests on Tony's website. I am not sure exactly how to evaluate the results, which were not clearcut in my case. I did NOT see any conscious mental images, of course. And the tests seem largely irrelevant to the question at hand.

      Remember the blindsighted subject who gave 100% correct responses to test questions that required knowledge about the spatial location of a light that appeared in an area of the visual field that the subject reported he could not 'see'? That is, the blindsighted individual had no CONSCIOUS image of the blindsight-area, yet he took in visual stimuli from that area, and did respond behaviorally to it.

      But this did NOT mean that the blindsighted subject SAW in the area of blindsight, i.e., that he formed a conscious mental image there. Instead, what has been suggested is that the visual stimuli were processed via more primitive neural networks that did not involve the visual cortex and associated brain regions used to form a CONSCIOUS mental picture. We need to remember that most of the brain activity even of Homo sapiens involves processes that are NON-conscious.

      While it is reasonable to be skeptical of introspective reports, it is unreasonable to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I am able to KNOW, of course, that I don't see any sort of 'mental image' in a 'mind's eye'. But I have to evaluate your claim more skeptically, for I cannot directly inspect what is going on in your head. And, for those who DO see mental images, it must be more difficult still to evaluate your claims, since there mental processes are quite different from yours in this regard.

      Tony has an open mind, but not all experts working in this area do. I found it humorous that neuropsychologists working with blindsight are willing to accept what there subjects tell them regarding inability to form a mental imgage, but that a foremost researcher working on conscious visual mental imagery (Marks) adamantly refused to do likewise with his subjects. Marks insists that subjects who respond say they have a kind of 'mental imagery blindsight' must be lying to him, or else they must be CRAZY?!

     But why would you or I want to lie about this subject? And it is bad methodology to 'explain away' the portion of the introspective-report data that does not fit a particular theory by insisting that a great many subjects must be 'crazy'.

     It seems that in the U.S. population a minority of persons can form strong, lasting, colorful conscious mental images. Most persons, though, can only form images that are weaker, are less lasting, and are less colorful or not colored at all. And a small percentage of the population seems to have NO ability to form conscious visual mental images at all, though these persons must be processing visual data stored in long-term memory without forming conscious mental images.

     The population distribution pattern of this trait, or lack of the trait, remains to be determined, it seems. Ditto the cross-cultural variablity of the trait. Nor do we know the evolutionary significance of the trait, or what adaptive pressures are operative on the several varieties of it.

     The neural-biology of conscious mental imaging is getting attention, though even here knowledge is rudimentary. Scanning techniques have unfortunate limitations. Indeed, apparently we don't even know whether 'seeing images,' versus not seeing them, is genetically determined, or whether this is a learned difference, e.g., perhaps a learned difference in what one ATTENDS to.

     (I wonder if anyone has tried to foment images in non-imagers while they are in a state of heightened attention, e.g., when they are hypnotized).

     And, of course, the functional, adaptive importance of 'seeing with the mind's eye' also requires study. Thinking in pictures, or in words, may have differential value while performing different tasks.

    In one area, my preliminary purusal of the research literature indicates that being able to visualize does give a big advantage to persons seeking to memorize (certain kinds) of vocabulary items during second-language acquistion. But, I wonder, would NON-imagers, with their more 'verbal' kind of thinking, do better when it comes to mastering the new GRAMMATICAL schemes and structures, which can't really be 'visualized' so easily?

    Being able to 'pre-see' a problem would seem to be helpful in many task situations. But perhaps 'talking through' a situation helps with other kinds of tasks. That both you and I earned doctorates, without the ability to form conscious mental images, would seem to indicate that imagery is not crucial to academic success, at any rate. Ciao, paul

I make it clear from the beginning that I see, hear and feel mental images and I am not intrigued by the fact that other people may not have the same type of experience I have. Seeing with the mind's eye, feeling or hearing beyond our generic perception is not only a natural gift or fallacy but also an exercise, which falls under a rule of dominance, exclusion and perceptual canibalism: the more you exercise a perceptual mode the weaker or atrophied becomes the other one. This process, as greasy and organic as it may feel is dependent through unseen connections by our culture that stains our "innocent eye," our way of seeing things without filters. The world of arts is a perfect map of our ways to represent what we see and imagine and the influence of culture . Please make a drawing, or look to the drawings you made when you were a child, and tell me your experience.

Edited by author 04-04-2007 01:49 PM
Linda,

In response to your post #109 and other recent posts:

Now (for the first time I can recall), I will have to back off somewhat on that claims of 7/20/2006 about the rotation task. Both you and Paul have chided me on seeming to make claims about what others experience. Point taken.

But from the standpoint of a certain brand of strictly empirical psychology, note that it does not matter what you experience. If you can do the image rotation tasks (letter rotation, Shepard and Metzler rotations, etc.), then, by hypothesis, you employ "mental images." Here the terms "mental images" need to be in quotes because, in part, the term is understood in terms of a circular definition! We mean: "can perform the tests" and we feel the tests capture the phenomenon we are after. But if we feel the tests are not capturing what we want, then perhaps we should throw out these tests! This is not unique to empirical psychology. Definitions, in terms of tests and outcomes, are necessary parts of science.

So, my claim of 7/20/2006 is wrong in the sense that it seems to imply that most "normal" people will experience some simple form of inwardly presented mental image during the rotation task. But it is basically right in terms of how strict empiricism understands the issue. (Incidentally, the wrongness of the strictly empiricist approach is one of the main points of my work. But I am obliged to explain and support it, and I have a certain sympathy for it.)

Actually, the reports of subjects using their hands to solve mental rotation problems goes way back to Shepard and Metzler! As I recall, they "allowed" this within the scope of their understanding of subjects "using mental images to solve the task." (The failure to address learning, the nature of visual presentations, subject reports, and individual differences are some of the weaknesses of their approach, which I tried to point out.)

Just a couple of other remarks:

- Again, I appreciate your detailed accounts of your problem solving process. This is part of the approach I endorse in psychology: taking into account subject reports. Just to be clear: I think we should use tests and subject reports together.

- You state: "...when I read the posts on this list from Paul and Katy (about her husband) and Mollypearl, I am reading about people like me – the experiences they describe are like mine – they have never seen mental visual images in a waking state. The mental screen is always blank."

This is good information! We want to know how people experience the world.

- You report not using images and that you can do some of the tests only with difficulty, so to my mind this means that the tests are very useful. The tests should be difficult or impossible for non-imagers. No test, of course, ensures what a person will "experience" during the test, so, again, if I have made that claim somewhere, then that is wrong.

- Some of your accounts seem to fall within what seems to me "normal": difficulty with faces, forgetting details of films, not able to recognize a photo of the house next door. It sounds like the perceptual data test was similar to what others have reported (though only one or two have done so). I think the average is about 6 right out of the 10, but it's a VERY imprecise test, and I am not sure it measures anything at all.

Regards,

Tony

   Here's another example relating to visual recognition of my neighbor's house: I have been staying for the past year at my parents' house, to help nurse my father who is ill. This is the house that I grew up in, lived here from ages 5-17, visited frequently for 35 years, and returned a year ago to live here for a while. In other words, I know the neighborhood well! On both sides, we have neighors who are rather reclusive and I've never even been inside their homes, though those houses have both been there for at least 40 years.
   One of those houses is for sale, and yesterday I wanted to find out what it was listed for. On a real estate website, I entered the street address and zip code. The system pulled up a house with the identical address but a different zipcode. Is it my neighbor's house, listed with a wrong zip code? Look, there's a color photo of the front of the house. Hmmm, is that the house next door? (which house I've known for 40 years...) I'm completely unsure. The picture shows a red brick house, three stories, with white trim, a couple of balconies with red awnings... I think that maybe the next-door house is red brick -- not sure though -- does it have white trim? I've never noticed... I had to memorize details from the photo (2 white balconies with red awnings), go outside, and look for those details on his house in order to determine that yes, that is the same house. I can describe the front of my parent's house because I have many times stood in front of it and looked at it. I'm familiar with its features in a working way: I've maintained the gutters and roof, I've washed the windows, I've shoveled the walkway and driveway, I see the house face-on every time I drive into the driveway. But I've never stood and looked at the house next door enough to file away mental notes about its features, so I don't recognize a photo of it.
   Scary to admit how unobservant I am, but it may derive from the inability to mentally review scenes in a visual way, so I only remember features about which I made a mental note (typically verbal) at the time I was looking at something. I can remember details about the appearance of places I've been only to the extent that I retold the story about being there, including the description of those features, soon afterwards.
  Linda

Edited by author 04-03-2007 12:06 PM
Tony,
   When I read your posts, I need to question one basic assumption: that if someone can generate answers to any of the imagery tests on your website, visual mental imagery is involved. It’s like saying that if a self-reported blind person can walk two blocks and cross the street to get to the coffeeshop, he must have outer vision, because the rest of us rely so heavily on vision to perform that task.
   In our outer perception, most of us engage several different modes of perception – visual, auditory, tactile, kinesthetic, etc – which may be so integrated that we cannot distinguish them. People who are deficient in one of those senses rely more heavily, and more ingeniously, on the others. Why would this not also be true for our inner perception? I don’t understand the “imageless thought” debate: why deny the existence of inner thought in all of its forms? As with our waking perception, some people are much stronger in one form of perception than another, so some perceptions dominate in their thought processes. And some of us may be entirely lacking in one form of perception – i.e. visual – so our other senses come into play much more powerfully.
   I can calculate answers to a couple of the tests on your website, but there is no visual perception involved – my mental video screen is totally blank. In the Perceptual Data test, for the shorter strings I was able to get the answer by reading each letter to myself – very quickly -- while it was being displayed, holding that string in my verbal memory, and recalling it verbally. The number of letters I can get depends on my speed of verbalizing to myself and the duration of the display – with more than 4 letters, I could not speak them all to myself while the display was on – so could not recall them afterwards. The recall involved no form of visual memory – it was totally verbal memory, repeating to myself the verbal string of letters I had just verbalized to meyself. With the longer strings that form words, I was able to use my wonderful magical pattern-recognition that we use for reading to capture the whole word while it was displayed.
   I have no after-image of the blue dot.
   In the corner-counting, I can calculate an answer like this: I notice the shape of the figure – it’s a block U. With my eyes closed, I cannot see this – the screen is blank. I can use my kinesthetic memory to trace a block U with my finger on my leg – I can do this because I have drawn a U millions of times holding a pencil. I am not using visual memory, I am using kinesthetic memory. As I trace the block U with my finger on my leg, I count the corners as I come to them.
   For the letter rotation test, I have various kinesthetic devices I can use. Here’s one: Again, my kinesthetic memory knows how to trace a N on my leg. I’m a massage therapist, so I happen to think a lot in anatomical terms. As I trace the N on my leg, I create a verbal script which describes the anatomical position and direction of each stroke: proximal to distal on the medial side, then a diagonal line moving proximally to the lateral side, then a line moving distally on the lateral side. I can also feel this shape on my legs, using my proprioceptive senses. Now having traced this figure and spoken this script to myself, I can rotate my head 90 degrees and trace the figure again, using my anatomical verbal script, and my kinesthetic memory tells me that I have just traced a Z. Simple! :-) or maybe not so simple for someone who can do it in one step using visual memory – but in fact I can calculate the answer, and there is no visual memory involved, because the mental screen is blank the whole time. This may be a good example of how a non-imager works overtime with other senses in order to compensate and function.
   Tony, when I read the posts on this list from Paul and Katy (about her husband) and Mollypearl, I am reading about people like me – the experiences they describe are like mine – they have never seen mental visual images in a waking state. The mental screen is always blank. So I don’t necessarily believe that I am the only one who cannot pass your tests VISUALLY – like I said, we have all sorts of compensation devices we use, relying heavily on other forms of perception in order to accomplish what others accomplish visually. Just because we can count the corners doesn’t mean we are doing it visually. In fact, the only reason I can count the corners on the figure which is in the shape of a block U is because I can classify the shape of the figure in order to trace it on my leg. With another figure in a non-common shape, I would be completely unable to perform the task, because that shape is not held in my kinesthetic memory – it’t not a shape that I am accustomed to drawing. I can calculate the windows in my house because I have a lot of experience being in my house and using the windows. I have no idea how many windows there are in the front of my next-door neighbor’s house, because I do not have the life experience of being in that house and washing the windows, looking out the windows, etc. I cannot conjure up a visual memory of that house.
   I am curious about the thought processes I use and how I use other senses to do what others do visually. There are many things that other people do which I can manage only poorly or not at all. On many occasions, I’ve felt a lot of anxiety when I have to meet someone in a public place whom I’ve only met once before – because I’m afraid I won’t recognize the face. That face is not yet familiar enough to me to enable the kind of whole-face pattern recognition that happens with faces we know well, like the whole-word pattern recognition that I can do in your Perceptual Data test with longer words, without having to speak each letter to myself verbally. I can tell you that my sons both have blue eyes, because it’s a mental fact that I have filed away, but I can’t tell you what color eyes – or what shape eyebrows – my sister has, because I’ve never made a mental note of it in a verbal sense. I know that my younger son has a mole somewhere on his face, but I have no idea where, because I’ve not stored the mental fact about the location of that mole – only about the existence of a mole on his face. I drive myself crazy having to look up the same information again and again, before I’ve managed to integrate the knowledge in some way that enables me to make associations that retrieve it. I forget most of the content of movies and novels within hours of finishing them – maybe because of a lack of visual memory? And I suspect that my lack of visual memory is a big factor in my having almost no direct childhood memories – I only remember things in terms of stories that have been told to me about my childhood experiences.
   I do find it fascinating that there are three distinct capabilities: outer vision in a waking state, inner vision in waking state, and inner vision in a sleep state, and that I have two of these capabilities (outer seeing and sleep dreaming) but not the third - waking inner seeing.
  Sorry for excessive length of message -- it takes a lot of words to describe these goofy thought processes!
Linda

oh heavens, that's another thing I never realized I was missing out on: seeing poetry or novels while I read them! I'm sure there's a lot, lot more. I never realized anything was radically different in my perception until sometime in my thirties, when my husband filled me in. Up until that time, I had always thought that people were speaking metaphorically when they talked about "the mind's eye" or "visualizing" something. It was a huge shock to discover that others can actually see pictures in their minds...
Linda

Stan,

Great point, as many poets are known for their "imagery." Imagery is not limited to visual imagery. For example, one of the most famous Haikus is:

Old pond -- and frog jump in -- water sound.

Did you "hear" the sound?

Some people report that reading novels is better than seeing movies -- partly, I think, based on the "visual" qualities that some experience when reading novels.

I don't know if you are a subscriber to this is forum (there are only 4!) but you can start or stop subscribing at any time.

Tony

It must be sad, if not frustrating, to not be able to see the poetry that one reads.

Linda,

Thanks so much for posting.

Your post is unique. You are the first one ever to report that you could not do some of the imagery tasks and that you even had difficulty with the letter rotation. As far as I know, this is most unusual! (And, obviously, you suffer from no "defect.") Yet, you dream! So you do have some form of mental images.

I don't have time right now for a more full response. Questions: Did you try the Perceptual Data Test? How about an after image with the blue dot? (You might have to make your own blue dot and try several times.) How about the corner counting? No luck there?

I REALLY appreciate your detailed account of your mental processes. At this point, my reaction is this: It may be that Pylyshyn is partly right afterall -- the actual substructure of imagery experiences is "verbal" and the experienced image has little importance. Following his idea, and combining it with James's ideas, it would seem that some people have access to the background verbal code that actually drives the inner visual presentation (image) that most people experience without the background verbal code.

P.S. Yes, having images is often very scary and bothersome. I may have mentioned this before on this forum -- I would say I have too many images.

Tony

p.s. am very curious about the emotional aspects of seeing pictures in your head -- is it glorious? is it scary? is it bothersome? maybe some of you who have this capacity could fill me in... thanks.
Linda

Tony, thank you thank you thank you for this discussion list. I’ve been looking for years for information about my complete lack of mental imagery, and your list is the first place where I’ve ever found any validation (from other correspondents) of this phenomenon in others – Paul et al..
Can you prove to me that some people do see mental images? I can’t believe it, because in my experience it is impossible – it’s as if other people were telling me that they can fly, and they can’t believe that I cannot!
I tried the tests on your website, and did not manage to perform any of them. The only one for which I can compose any sort of an answer is the letter rotation. For me, it is all verbal thinking involving facts that I have memorized over the 53-year course of my lifetime. My mental video screen is totally black. The verbal thought process goes like this: If I want to rotate the letter N, I can trace spatially the way I write an N: an upward vertical stroke, followed by a downward diagonal stroke, followed by an upward vertical stroke. (this is not via visual memory, of which I have none -- it is via kinesthetic memory, the memory of my hand drawing these strokes). I have memorized the fact that if I rotate a vertical line 90 degrees, it becomes a horizontal line. So I will end up with two horizontal lines in the result. If I rotate a diagonal line 90 degrees – ugh, I have to think about that one a long time, because that fact isn’t sitting in an easily accessible location in my verbal memory. Trying to recreate the thought process right now as I type this is arduous – very wearing on the brain... Again, all of this is happening against a black background -- I cannot see any of these lines visually. First I have to think verbally about the first vertical line and think about what would happen if I rotated it. Then I have to think about rotating the diagonal line, and I don't know what would happen if I rotated it. Then the second vertical line. Even then, I have no way to think about those three lines rotated and how to put them together to form a new shape. This whole thought process takes several minutes, and is so taxing that I would prefer to give up, open my eyes, draw the damn letter on a piece of paper, and rotate the paper in order to discover the answer. I assume that this is not what you mean by mental imagery! My understanding is that some people can actually see some visual representation of the letter N in their heads, which enables them to do this task in a similar way as rotating it on a piece of paper, instead of going through the ridiculous mental verbal process that I described (and it was so hard for me that I gave up before completing the task, though if my life depended on it, I probably could have completed it – though I would likely have cheated by tracing the letter on my leg and feeling the result kinestheticaly, because it is impossible for me to achieve visually – there is simply no visual representation of this letter available to me with my eyes closed).
Your Imagination test says: “IMAGINE YOURSELF FLYING TO THE MOON. It's easy to do.” I’ve tried many times to imagine myself walking along a familiar path. I can’t do it. I’ve tried and tried and tried. I cannot see it. Your memory test asks how many windows are in the front of my house. I can only answer this question by using the same sort of spatial thinking that I use if I walk up to my house with my eyes closed, or in complete darkness. I can remember factually that I the walkway to the front porch goes off to the right and up the hill, at the top turn left to step up onto the porch, there is the living room window. If I walk into the living room, I can walk straight into the dining room, and the dining room window is straight ahead – etc. Entirely based on verbal memory of spatial facts – with my eyes closed thinking about my house, it is complete blackness.
The entire concept of seeing images in my head is so alien that your tests seem completely ludicrous: superimpose two images? are you crazy? how can you see two images if you cannot even see one image?
I do see wonderful videos in dreams, which I am very grateful for. I have never in my life been able to conjure up an image intentionally in a waking state – as hard as I try, I cannot see the color red, nor can I see a square, nor can I see my son’s face. Nor do I have pictures of anything pop into my mind. When my eyes are closed, it is black. I do not see afterimages of images, except for a brightness for a while after looking at a bright light. I have never seen any color with my eyes closed, nor any shape or form.
I suspect that I am completely mentally blind in my waking consciousness, otherwise why would I be asking my friends questions like:
-can you see someone’s face with your eyes closed?
-can you visualize a color?
-do you choose what images to see, or do things just pop into your mental vision unsummoned?
-do you see still pictures, or moving?
-can you keep an image in your mind for as long as you like, or do images fade of their own accord?
-do you only see mental images with your eyes closed, or also with eyes open
-are you plagued by seeing things that you don't want to see?
-etc, etc...
HERE'S THE GOOD NEWS! I have discovered one big advantage of being mentally blind: for years, I’ve wondered why so many people report that is difficult to meditate, when it is so easy for me. I finally realized – duh! – that other people have visual distraction with their eyes closed! All I see is black, so meditation comes naturally. It makes me wonder what it would be like to go through life with mental images, and whether I would like it or hate it. Maybe I would see things that I don’t want to see! Maybe it would cause too much distraction or emotional disturbance?
But I can assure you, Tony, that I have never seen anything but blackness with my eyes closed in a waking state, and I have never seen anything but whatever is in front of me with my eyes open.
You wrote on 7/20/2006 : “I stick by my claim: everyone has mental images, everyone (except the severely handicapped) can do elementary mental rotation and other tasks involving imagery”. I do not believe that I am severely mentally handicapped – I have a Ph.D., worked for 20 years as a corporate research scientist, can do the Sunday New York Times Crossword in about 90 minutes, I speak several languages, etc. But I can see nothing but blackness with my eyes closed.
Your claim is like a sighted person saying: I claim that everyone can see what's in front of them with their eyes open -- people who claim to be blind are just fooling themselves or fooling others. I don' believe that claim either.
I suspect that I’ve made some spectacular cognitive adjustments that enable me to function effectively, but I always wonder what my cognition would be like with even a small bit of mental imagery – I imagine it would feel dramatically different to go through life every day with images in my head.
By the way, if you ever know of anyone who is studying non-imagers, I would happily volunteer. My gmail address is lindagert. Because I am an energy healer and have experienced deep transformational healing in other areas of my life, I believe that the potential exists for me to develop mental imagery in some form, and I aspire to do so – so would very much appreciate hearing about the experience of anyone who has effected this transformation in him/her self.
Am also curious to know whether this particular cognitive impairment tends to occur in people who were born several weeks prematurely, like me.
Best regards,
Linda

Paul,

Yes, if we all could agree on the definition of mental images, life would be a lot easier! But philosophers and psychologists tend to go their own way and set up various discplines based on their own definitions.

Your example of language learning is a good one. I believe I had a teacher contact me about this point some years ago.

I like your ideas for research! Surely there is a dissertation or two there.

As for the "distribution" I don't know it off hand. But your request is a good one. I have had similar requests before. One problem however, is the validity of the questionaires used in such studies! (That is why some researchers perfer brain scans.) One place to start is the Galton experiement of 1883. I have not looked but this may be available on the Internet.

Hopefully, I will be able to post more data on my site that will address some of the questions and insights you have.

Tony

   Hi Tony:

      Thanks for your informed and cordial comments.

      I can only claim to be a 'subject' on this topic, since I have no expertise. But perhaps the musings of a relatively critically-thinking 'non-imager' might be of interest.

      First, it seems to me that defining 'visual mental image' in a way that includes both conscious, and sub-conscious, cognitive processing results in a concept that is too 'fuzzy.' Valid concepts of empirical phenomena need to 'point to' entities or processes that have some organic unity about them. A too-broad concept of 'visual mental image' fails here.

     Just as blindsight and normal conscious sight are not understood with one, single concept, so 'mental imagers' should be conceptualized as different from 'non-imagers.' Obviously, people like me are processing visual information that has been stored in long-term memory, and we use it to shape behavior. But I don't SEE anything in a 'mind's eye.' And that makes me different from most people with regard to this trait.

     As to what negative effects 'visual-mental-image blindsightedness' might have on performance, I can think of one off hand.

     I am interested in the second-language-acquisition research on vocabulary building. (There is a distinct research area devoted to this topic). One of the firmest conclusions of SLA researchers is that using 'visual mental imaging' as a mnenomic technique results in much more rapid vocabulary acquistion for adult second-language learners than studying new vocabulary without visualizing.
 
     But, obviously, using visualization as a mnenomic technique can't possibly work for people who CANNOT form mental images!

    It would be easy to take Marks's mental imagery scale and give it to a relatively large sample of university college students who are beginning study of a foreign language. Then, expose those subjects to a list of unfamiliar foreign vocabulary, under controlled conditions, with prompts on how to use visualization to speed learning new words. The non-visual-imagers should perform significantly less well than the imagers, and the strong-imagers should perform best of all.

    Besides having relevance to general cognitive functioning, this kind of research would have practical implications. Billions of dollars, literally, are being spent annually on teaching foreign languages in high schools and colleges across the nation, in the military to recruits with potential as language-learners, and even to new immigrants who must learn English as a second language. Remarkably, SLA experts seem to pay very little attention to individual differences. Mostly they search for the best method for 'the' student - but not all students fit the stereotyped conception. (In psychotherapy, addiction treatment, and some other areas, 'matching' individual clients to the 'treatment' which works best for them is very old hat - but NOT in education!).

    Anyway, because of the practical applications, and the diverse funding sources that would be interested in such research, as well as because the methodology I described is so clear-cut, my guess is that this would be fundable research. And interesting, too.

    On another matter: the distribution pattern of "strong imagers/weak/moderate imagers/non-imagers" in the population seems to me to be very important. Do you have any source on this?

    Trait distributions in populations result from on going evolutionary processes. The ability to visually image from memory has to have had great evolutionary significance over homonid history. Most mammals use images from memory to 'pre-see' environmental situations. Before entering an area, it is useful to the mammal to call up an image and inspect it, thus 'viewing from memory' where predators or prey might be located, etc.

    So, why do we see in current human populations a few very strong imagers, a large number who image moderately, and some who have entirely lost the ability to form conscious visual mental images? The exclusion principle decrees that a trait with even a slight adaptive advantage with, other things equal, spread and replace all other competing traits.

    If the ability to visualize did, and does, have adaptive significance, then why do we find such a wide array of types in the population? Why some stong imagers, many moderate imagers, and even a few NON-imagers. Why hasn't the most fit type - whatever that might be - competitively replaced the types that are less fit?

    Under some conditions, trait diversity can stabilize in the population. Sickling of hemoglobin is a classical example. Alleles exist for both sickled and non-sickled red blood cells. Homozygous individuals for non-sickling have normal hemoglobin. In much of sub-Saharan Africa, these persons are susceptible to the endemic malaria of the region. Heterozygotes have moderate red-blood cells, and this provides some protection against malaria, so it is selected FOR. But homozygotes for sickling develop sickle-cell anemia, which is fatal, a strong selection AGAINST sickling.
  
    The result is population stability of diversity. The reason is that it is the heterozygote who has the best survival chance: less malaria, but no anemia. But the by-product is that a minority of persons will, statistically, inevitably end up homozygous for the non-sickling, or for the sickling, condition. And both will suffer. It is when diverse and conflicting evolutionary pressures of this sort exist that you get population diversity of a trait.

    It would be very, very interesting to know the population distribution of conscious mental imaging. My guess is that such imaging must have had in the past evolutionary value, and that most mammals still rely highly on 'pre-seeing' their environment as a way of protecting against dangers. But, with humans, pre-TALKING about the environment comes to be more important than pre-seeing. Indeed, it is language and social communication that marks us off from all other animals.

    Maybe 'squeezing out' visualization from attention had/has adaptive value for a species moving out of pre-seeing as its primary adaptive strategy, and into pre-TALKING about the environment. And, maybe, there is some genetic, hardware change involved here. But if retaining SOME ability to 'pre-vision' a situation continues to have value, along with giving more emphasis to pre-talking new actions, then what would be selected for might be something like the heterozygote case with sickle cell. You want to give up SOME visualization ability, and focus attention more on thinking and planning in words, but maybe you don't want to lose ALL your ability to 'see' in the mind's eye.

    This is all speculation, of course. But population distribution data would be really interesting. Some patterns of trait-distribution are know by population biologists to reflect common trait and adaptive pressure situations. If you get a very similar distribution of strong mental imagers/moderate mental imagers/ non-imagers in diverse populations, then that would be a clue that something very fundamental in human evolution might be going on here.

Paul,

After images (as well as the other kinds) are described on my site. And there is a "blue-dot" example. It is sometimes better to just use a magic marker on a piece of paper. The after-image most people see (due to the overload) is yellowish-orange. I do not get one every time.

As for looking at a landscape and still seening it when you look away, that would not be an after-image (no overload), but a memory or eidetic image. Certainly, there will be a large variation in this kind of experience.

Incidentally, your other remarks makes me think of an "I.Q." test I once took. I was presented with a box with some 50 items in it - but no clue was given as to why I was given the box and what I might be asked to do next. I was then asked to recall as many items as I could. I was able to both "see" and to verbally recall some of the items, but suppose I could not recall a single one? I think "imagery memory" was presumed in this test as a measure of I.Q. As you suggest, this an other tests/questions/protocols may have a built-in prejudice that assumes a certain theory about mental imagery.

Tony

Paul,

This is in response to recent reply to me (number 95 on this discussion).

Thanks for you detailed and insightful post.

First, let me apologize for my first response to you. It struck the wrong tone and did not answer your request.

Let me try again. Here is what I was trying to say: I hear you. Many people have written to me about being non-imagers. The suggestions I have are the following:

1. Go to my site (I assume that you got to this discussion from there, but it's http://www.gis.net/~tbirch.) Do as many experiments and exercises as you can, and report back to me if you wish. Doing the experiments may help you decide to what degree you are a non-imager. But of course, the experiments only tell part of the story! They do not determine what you think or inwardly "see."

2. By way of history, what usually happens when self-reported non-imagers try the experiments is this: they can do them. As I tried to indicate in my first response, most investigators (not necessarily me) would say the fact that a person can do these tasks indicates that "mental images" (either conscious or unconscious) were used.

3. The non-imagers who have contacted me in the past, have usually indicated something like this: "Well..ok, I can do the tests on your site, but that is not what I mean. My problem is that I have no images the way other people have them. My mental life appears to be different from everyone else's!"

Now let me return to the response I should have given (and usually do give, when I am contacted by non-imagers). I have NO worked out view I insist on, but here are my opinions:

a. I follow James in arguing that there are many kinds of minds. I like the "spectrum" idea, that the range of human cognition extends from non-imagers to people who actually have "too many images" (eideticers) and who actually cannot properly percieve in some cases because of it! As I indicated in my post to Larry, this is actually a "dangerous" idea, because it undermines the entire idea of a uniform "science" of "the" human mind.

b. Scientists and abstract thinkers frequently report "no images." In fact, lack of imagery seems to be linked to high I.Q., as indictaed by the famous Galton survey of scientists and other thinkers of 1883.

c. I generally resist the idea that there is anything "abnormal" or defective in non-imagers. Unless they have serious problems in doing ordinary tasks, I urge them to see themselves as "within the spectrum." (I could be wrong in doing so, but my thought is that it is better to be positive about one's abilities than negative.)

d. From a practical point of view, if non-imagers feel "left out," I point out that, as far as I know, everyone can see after-images. Also, contrary to what non-imagers think, they also dream! At least they have REM sleep, just like everyone else. The difference is that they do not recall their dreams. This was reported, I believe, by Richardson. So, in this minimal sense, they have images -- even if it is of little or no consequence in their conscious lives. (So, Larry, yes, if Paul can experience after-images, that is generally considered to be one form of mental image.)

Now let me respond, comment, on some of your points in your recent post:

- My view is that mental images ought to be identified as objects consciously "seen." (But on my site I try to address the other views that are out there.) So we agree there.

- Your report "I simply have NEVER seen anything in a 'mind's eye'" corresponds to the many others I have had.

- Your account of David Marks is most amusing, and reflects the tension (since Wundt!) between "science" an allowing subjective reports. When this issue came up at my defense, one person asked "well, why can't subjective reports be part of science?"

- Your distinction between object recognition and other tasks: Understood. An important distinction.

- Your suggestion that non-imagers be investigated via PET: Great idea. You may want to follow up on that and see if it is being done, or suggest it to someone as a research topic. It would make a great dissertation.

- No, I don't know the variation in scans is among imagers (I have a hunch it might show quite a bit of variation, but would need to have non-imagers included to show the full possible range, just as you suggest).

- Non-imaging as a "defect." From the practical point of view, what are some of the negative impacts? It would be good to articulate these. (The one I have heard most often is "I don't know what it is like for others, I feel left out, etc.)

Tony

   Hi Larry -

    Could you explain a bit for me what YOU experience as an 'after image,' and what you mean to include in the concept?

    If I look at the sun for a bit, then look away, I will see brightness that is not there where I am now looking.

    I think if I stare at a brightly-colored dot for awhile, and then look away, I might see that dot still (or some vague outline of it) against a mono-chrome background.

    I never look at a complex visual field (a face, a landscape, etc.), and then look away and still 'see' some or all of that 'picture.' Do you have afterimages of this complex sort? I do not.

    I first became aware of not having an ability to image in a psych one class, in the late 1950s. An old German gestaltist asked the class to imagine 'a picture of your mother's face,' and then to put their fingers on their mother's nose. I sat in my seat absolutely dumbfounded.

    Later, I asked the prof what the devil was going on. He said not to worry, about 2% of his students could not see mental images, and that they usually had higher than average verbal abilities and were good students. From that point on, I simply filed the info and did not worry about it.

    (I had a lot of behavioristic psych some years later, when I returned to finish my undergrad degree after military service, and I guess I learned not to think about mental phenomena, along with most others of that generation, alas).

     Today, reading the instructions given to subjects in mental imaging experiments is an absolutely bizarre experience for me. For example, in Kosslyn's instructions to his subjects during his PET studies of brain activity during mental imaging subjects were asked to 'see' letters of different sizes, 'look' at different parts of those letters, etc. This is SO far out of my ken! It is like listening to someone describe what happened to them on a UFO. I am tempted to believe that people who claim to 'see' things that are not there are making it all up.

    Of course, so many reliable informant reports having a mind's eye that I am forced to accept that this ability exists.

    By the way, I noticed on David Marks 5-point evaluation scale of mental imaging, he includes as point #5: "see no mental image, just 'know' that the thing is there'. This is one possible response an informant can give when asked to 'visualize' an object in the mind by Marks.

   The other four possible responses go from very strong visualizing ability, in color, to very weak and transcient, but some, ability to 'see' the image.

    Do you have any idea what Mark's distributions look like for subjects tested with this task and instrument?

    My guess would be that the distribution is going to be something like normal - most people visualize but only moderately. A few have extremely strong, perduring, colored images. Others have very weak, or even no, images. The fact that even Marks accepts that a distribution exists, and the fact that he gives subjects the option to say that they do NOT see conscious mental images, makes it odd that he then forcefully rejects what his data reveal: that a percentage of subjects tested deny being able to produce mental images in a mind's eye.

     Instead, Marks claims subjects who don't respond as he claims they 'ought' are NUTS?!

     It would be interesting to know what percentage of people, asked to form a visual mental image, respond that they can't 'see' such any image, they can only 'think about' the thing mentioned.

   Larry, Thank you for your response. I am more interested in current neuro-biological research on vision, and on mental imaging, than on the historical debate on imageless thought.

    Seems to me that the concept of 'thought' in itself - whether imageless or not - is much, much too broad. What is going on in the mind/brain, and in the CNS more broadly, is too complex and too diverse to be described under a rubric so general as 'thought' - unless you are willing to concede that 'thoughts' are tremendously diverse, involve a myriad of discrete and semi-discrete neural complexes and pathways, and produce (amongst other things) a whole spectrum of 'mental states.'

    One rather discrete cognitive skill/experience appears to be the ability to generate 'visual mental images' in a 'mind's eye.' Even here, though, there seems to be a great deal of variability. There may be a variety of ways in which this 'visual imaging' system can operate, that is, to some degree different neural pathways may be employed in different people. There seems to be a considerable variance in this 'visual mental imaging skill' in the population, too; i.e., some persons have a great facility for visual mental imaging, others have only a mediocre skill, while still other totally lack the skill. I don't think general discussions about the nature of 'thought' will get us very far if what we want to understand is the neurological brain/mind system(s) that makes possible the 'mind's eye,' as it is found in most but not all people.

     There has to be some process, or processes, by which visual information stored in long-term memory gets accessed, sent to the PVC, and then stimulates the PVC to produce output similar to what is produced from incoming sense data. (Of course, even incoming visual data is always been mixed with, and influenced by, top-down info from stored memory).

     Whatever is going on - or not going on in the case of non-imagers - it is too neurologically too specific, but also too complex, to be much explucidated by a discussion of 'thought' in general terms.

     My own background is very far away from this subject matter. (Agricultural and economic anthropology). However, one thing that working in another culture teaches you is that one must take informant reports seriously. Informants do not always tell you what is objectively 'true.' Sometimes informants lie, or mistake, or imagine. But, sometimes they DO tell you things that are objectively 'true,' and that you yourself do not know and/or understand. It takes a good deal of skill to winnow informant error from valid report. But what informants say should never be tossed out on the basis of preconceived conventional wisdom, even when such is dressed up as a 'scientific theory.' David Marks, for example, for all his knowledge of this subject, goes much too far when he claims that anyone who states that he/she does not see visual images in a mind's eye must simply be NUTS.

    In Alice In Wonderland, the Red Queen explains that in Wonderland the sentence in a trial is always rendered first. Only later do lawyers get the chance to present evidence to the jury.

    For some scientists, theoretical conclusions come first. Afterwards, facts are perused, and they are accepted if they buttress the theory. If a large body of seemingly-reliable informants reports information that the scientist does not wish to hear, then this information is rejected out of hand. And even seemingly responsible informants are labled 'crazy'? "Hey, if you don't agree with MY theory, then you must be nuts."

    I think informants who report not having a 'mind's eye,' and not having the ability to form conscious visual mental images, ought to be given a lot more respect and attention than that. Of course, I am biased. I know from my own introspection that NON-imaging is real, since I am a person who does not, and never has, formed conscious visual mental images.

Paul , a quick question: can you experience afterimages?
Larry

   In reviewing past posts, Tony, I note that you seem to include under the rubric 'visual mental images' both brain/mind activities that are conscious (i.e., reported as being 'seen' in the 'mind's eye' by introspecting subjects), but also unconscious brain/mind activities, i.e., activation of neural networks without correlated informant reports, evidence drawn from observed behavior but without informant report, etc.

   This seems to me inappropriate. We know that visual imput can occur even when a subject does not consciously 'see' the source of that imput, and even when he/she has no conscious awareness that such imput is being received, processed and stored in the brain. And unconscious visual imput can shape behavior. Yet, it would be odd to say that the subject 'saw' the source of such imput, when no conscious awareness of the source of imput is present.

    I suggest that we focus upon conscious visual mental images that people 'see' in their 'mind's eye.' The term 'mental image' is mostly used to refer to such conscious representations. Information stored in long-term memory, and derived from past visual imput, may be accessed and used for cognitive tasks that do NOT involve forming a conscious mental picture, admittedly. While such non-conscious use of stored visual information is undoubtedly very important, I do not think it is wise to confuse it with the ability to form a conscious 'mental picture' in the 'mind's eye.' It is only this later, conscious image-formation ability that I am telling you I lack, and have always lacked. I simply have NEVER seen anything in a 'mind's eye.'

   If many subjects report that they simply do NOT see anything in a 'mind's eye,' that they lack conscious visual images, then such reports ought to be taken seriously and investigated. Not dismissed out of hand on 'theoretical grounds.'

    Of course, researchers cleave to the theories they have been trained to employ. Often, a generation has to die off before a new (better) theory gets a chance, as Kuhn long ago insisted and as many historians of sciences have affirmed since.

    David Marks has actually gone so far as to ACCUSE his informants of being CRAZY, when they do not give him the answers he wants to hear. Talk about bending facts to fit a theory! (Marks claims that anyone who states he/she does not 'see' mental images might suffer from 'subclinical neurological connection disorder syndrome.' That is, they actually DO see mental images, they just refuse, or can't, tell Marks the 'truth' he so much wants to hear.)

   I claim no academic expertise in this area. But I know for fact certain that I do not construct, and never have constructed, visual mental images in a conscious 'mind's eye' during waking hours. This is the discrete cognitive skill I am interested in discussing - and it seems to me a very important cognitive skill, albeit it is a skill some persons simply lack.

   I do not claim, of course, that I fail to process and store information from visual imput, later accessing that information to perform a variety of cognitive tasks. Obviously, I MUST be doing this, for example when I 'recognize' a familiar face or object. But object-recognition is NOT the same as formation of a conscious mental image. I obviously perform the first task, I do NOT perform the second.

    It would be better to STUDY persons who report no visual mental imaging, rather than insist to them that they must be seeing visual mental images that they know they do not see. A population of such non-imagers could easily be accessed via the non-verbal learning disorder associations, of which there are several. One interesting line of research would be to prompt non-imagers to try to imagine an image, and then observe PET activity in the PVA. It is possible that non-imagers send activation signals to the PVA, but simply never perceive the resultant activity in consciousness. Alternatively, the problem may be that the top-down activation of the PVA never occurs at all, and therefore the 'base' for what most imagers perceive when they see a mental image simply never is present in non-imagers.

   (By the way, do you happen to know what the distribution of responses looks like for PET activity in PVA in imaging studies by Kosslyn and others. How much variation is there amongst self-reported imagers?)

    I know, personally, that the inability to form a conscious visual mental image is a real cognitive defect, since I have this defect. How and why it occurs, what impact it has on adaptation and performance, and what compensations are made (e.g., increased verbal skill) are questions of interest. Non-imagers obviously think differently from most people, but that does not mean that they are necessarily less 'adapted.' As with, say, sickle-cell, this may be a 'defect' that offers adaptive advantage in some situations, under some conditions, etc.

    What I insist on, though, is that non-imaging and non-imagers ought to be investigated. I happen to know that it is a real phenomenon, since I have direct access to the condition through introspection. As an imager, you do not have direct, introspective proof that the condition of imaging-deficit exists. But you don't have introspective assurance that color-blindness exists, either, unless, of course, you are color-blind.

    What is needed is more research on self-reported non-imagers. Simply insisting that the minds of such people CAN'T possibly operate as these people say they operate is not good science. It is never good science to bend data too far to preserve a theory or a perspective. When the data don't fit the theory, it is time to re-look at the theory with an open mind.

Larry,

Great response! Exactly right. The imageless thought controversy in a key turning point in the history of psychology. Wundt also insisted that experiments should be occassions not only for the "observers" (i.e., empirical scientists) to record their findings, but for the subjects to attend to their own subjective experiences. In my view, these subjective experiences also should also count as "data." I also recount some of the of the imageless thought controversy history in my pages.

Unfortunately for the history of psychology, the entire subject of the role of mental images in thought was forgotten shortly after Wundt's time and was not rediscovered until Shepard Metzler reintroduced the controversy.

"Blind sight" is also a related issue. It would seem that (as Paul suggests below by way of personal experience) that some cognitive equipment can process visual data without the subject being aware of the processes subjectively. This opens a host of questions I can't go into here -- I feel that are entire relationship to the world, consciousness, and physical processes is involved.

Dunring my dissertation defense (as I no doubt now very inaccurately recall!), the validity of "subjective reports" as well as the variability in the cognitive equipment among individuals (imagers vs. non-imagers) came up. Both ideas, one person thought, threatened the very existence of cognitive psychology as a science. Indeed. That is why I like Wundt's idea that in some cases it will simply be impossible to separate the mental and physical components of a phenomenon.

Tony

Edited by author 03-24-2007 08:21 PM
Paul, do a research around the keyword "imageless thought". In the history of psychology is a debate concerning the notion that thought processes are not based upon images and that images are not necessary where thinking or judgment is required

Wundt believed that images were considered to be the necessary “vehicles of thought.” Contrary to this position Kulpe and the Wurzburg psychologists argued that there was no experimental evidence that imagery is present or essential in thinking.

Imageless thought was definead as “an idea, thought, or train of thinking which is wholly lacking in sensory contents, ” and thought as “a type of ideational experience which is symbolic; subvocal movements; a succession or train of symbolic processes; cognitive experience in general, as distinguished from 'feeling' and 'action'; a single one of several ideas in a course of thinking.” (Warren ,1934) or as “a thought completely devoid of optic pictures or representations, (Hinsie and Campbell ,1970)

Some titles:
Woodworth, R.S. (1915). A revision of imageless thought. Psychological Review, 22, 1-27.
Angell, J.R. (1911). Imageless thought. Psychological Review, 18, 295-323.
Bugelski, B.R. (1984). Imageless thought: The Wurzburg school. In R.J. Corsini (Ed.), Encyclopedia of psychology. Vol. 2. New York: Wiley.

See also:

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Woodworth/murchison.htm

http://tinyurl.com/2jqw3z

http://www.es-conseil.fr/GREX/textes%20int...%20chapitre%204.pdf

http://spartan.ac.brocku.ca/~lward/Angell/Angell_1897b.html

http://www.imagery-imagination.com/dun-wat.htm

Hope will help. Larry

Paul,

Thanks for the post. If you review the history of this discussion, you will see that you are one in a long list of people who have made the same claims.

As always, I refer those who say this to the mental imagery tests I provide on the web site (memory, imagination, etc.). So far, no one has ever reported that they cannot do the tasks (except, of course the eidetic imagery task). The ability to do the tasks indicates the presence of mental images. In fact, some tasks, such as the "corner counting" or letter rotation task -- many cognitive scientists will argue -- simply cannot be done without the presence of mental images. And these images will also be subjectively experienced. In other words, you will "see" the procedure used in obtaining the result by mentally counting the "visual" corners. So far, no one has written back to me claiming that they did not use subjectively experienced mental images but nevertheless performed the task. If this seems to be the case with you, it would not be, however, unheard of.
More, in the way of a response, if you choose to get back to me on this!
Regards,
Tony

   I would like to request info re the academic literature on mental imaging. I am a retired, 67 year old white male, who has NEVER, EVER had a 'visual mental image' while awake. (I have seen 'pictures' in dreams, and retain a vague memory of having done so upon awakening at times.)

   My voluntary cognition is dominated, almost exclusively, by 'verbalization,' i.e., I 'think' in a stream of words in my native language (American Midwestern English). I never form mental pictures while awake, and also am totally unable to 'hear' vocal mental images, i.e., I am unable to hear 'mental music.' Yet I can sort of 'sing' the lyrics to a song in my mind.

    I am interested in this topic, in part, simple out of personal curiosity. It also interests me as a scholarly topic. Seems to me that human variation along this dimension of cognitive performance has not received the attention it is due, though I do not claim to have gone very far yet in exploring the research literature.

     The National Nonverbal Learning Diabilities Association regards the inability to form mental images as a cognitive disability, most likely resulting from genetic defect, physical trauma, disease, etc. Mental imagining must involve an ability to engage the neural networks that are usually involved in processing incoming visual stimuli, but engaging them via VOLUNTARY imput from NON-sensory areas of the brain/mind. There must be some physical base for this ability. And it may be that some of us simply were born without this ability, or that the ability was damaged during development.

     Just as color vision is lacking in some persons, or even sight itself may be lacking in some (e.g., the congentially blind), it also seems probable that some persons are born 'mental-image blind,' that is, such persons (of whom I am one) simply NEVER see mental images while awake.

     Yet, how can I explain that I do seem to have the ability to generate such images in my sleep?

     Perhaps the inability to produce a mental image during waking hours is due to some sort of 'overlearning' of language, and a domination of conscience cognition by 'verbalizations.'

      Anyway, any info or comment on the topic would be much welcome. Thanks. paul

Good questions!

I address some of these issue in my talk with slides (available on my site). The role of such public/private image narratives such as films and comic books intrigues me.

Q. Can oral history be considered a simple device?
A. Not sure what you mean by that.

Q. Is the imagery that is passed from generation to generation private or public?
A. In the case of cultural narratives (e.g., acknowledged works of art) the distinction between public and private is not a "hard" one. Images must have some publicly understood meaning in order to serve as a tool of communication. This is part of Wittgenstein's private language argument, which I mention in my talk. This is also in line with Larry's description, "memetic and self-reproductive agents."

Q. Do the images belong to any one person or is it owned by a group of individuals of say, a clan?
A. Private mental images are just that, but there are some which in a sense become public material of "clans," for example, the cross as a universal symbol of Christianity.

Q. Can't these images be considered captured in the mindset?
A. Yes...I think.

Q. Can anyone give you an image to carry around in your mind? Would the giver of these images be considered an author of the image?
A. No one can give you THEIR image. The can, of course describe it, and cause you to construct something that may be phenomenally similar. The question of authorship is one of the central issues of postmodernism. To what extent is mental life private? This has been a central question since Descartes. I think the consensus today is, roughly, that mental life is less private than Descartes thought, but where or how to make any dividing line between public and private components remains a central problem.

Stan, in my last message to you, I said something about devices ( to read your sugar level)and PHD-s. It was a serious joke. The most exciting device to read the brain waves is inspired by it. It is a non-intrusive, beam of light which records the neuronic activity. Regarding your questions about images, all I can say, it is that they are carriers of subliminal information and they are powerful mimetic and self reproductive agents.
Larry

Can oral history be considered a simple device? Is the imagery that is passed from generation to generation private or public? Do the images belong to any one person or is it owned by a group of individuals of say, a clan? Can't these images be considered captured in the mindset? Can anyone give you an image to carry around in your mind? Would the giver of these images be considered an author of the image?

StanO

Larry,

I quite agree that mental imagery is poorly understood, and I would also agree that Dali's paintings are not "depictions of mental images," although in his writings (as I recall) he might have us believe otherwise.

Tbis bit of phenomenology, "The span life of a mental image is sometimes as short as several milliseconds," also seems correct.

Tony

Edited by author 01-21-2007 03:39 PM
Stan, mental imagery is a field where a breakthrough will come through people like Marconi or Tesla. Academic credentials serve for academic purposes. I have no such ambitions.

-Neuroscientific verification? There are millions of neurons firing in our brain. We know that the Earth moves around the Sun and we have day and night, but we cannot be sure that a configuration of stars is responsible for some phenomena in the Universe. All we can do is to guess in a trial/error fashion, and build metaphors.

The word "extraction" is equivalent with interpretation/processed and recording. Since the experience of mental images is so fugitive we work with its memory. Automatic drawing is closer to the phenomena but is based on a different approach, which is why Breton called it “dictation” (imagine the human body like an inert container moved by a powerful and dictatorial spirit). Abstract expressionists and gestural painters had the same kind of attitude. They believed that they are closer to their inner core, the subconstient, their true nature (some sort of modern animism/spiritualism). Self-suggestion and self-hypnosis. The evaluation of the artistic object in these cases resembles graphology. We can say something about the personality and the demons of the artist just looking at their abstractions.

My mental imagery drawings are realized in different conditions. I am not interested to "spill out” something, but to observe the images on my mental screen. Some people believe that is sufficient to close your eyes to experience visual mental images. Not true. We can discuss this issue some other time. A show currated around the concept of mental images is Fantastic Flights (Gallery Imperato, 2005):

In Greek phantastikos means able to create mental images. In this small group exhibition of seven artists, as curator, I believe it is their ability to take these mental images and translate them in their medium of choice whether it be in oil on canvas, in steel & velvet, silver gelatin on paper, or ink on paper. They capture every definition of fantastic flight. An exuberant show of the highest creative minds.

-Jordan Faye Block, curator

Regarding my personal bibliography, you can access it at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Mentalscreen/
http://360.yahoo.com/larrybonnphoenix

As I mentioned somewhere, my interest lays in devices. A simple device, which reads your sugar level, can be more exciting to me than a ton of PHD-ed stuff.
Take care, Larry

Larry,
I am appreciative of your attention to my questions. Besides being an artist, what credentials do you have to make statements regarding mental images? From visiting your website I read that you do not consider your work to be an 'extraction'. What neuroscientific verification do you have to support the basis of your work? Please explain how your work is different from early surealist automatic 'writing'. I am more interested in mental images that stay in the mind as opposed to being applied to any hard format such as paper or canvas. Would you please direct me to the several curated shows that you have mentioned in your 12-27-06 posting? Do you have a bibliography regarding your research that is accessible? I look forward to more contemporary insights regarding mental images from artists such as yourself.
Thank you,
StanO

There are a few artists who are into "mental imagery" as a research tool. Lately I found several curated shows in this regard, but most of the time it seems that they do not differ from a generic visualization technique or a post actum prelucration similar to the oniric or surrealist imagery. A mental image, given the circumstances in which hits the screen of our mind is so fugitive and messy that are very difficult to capture. What Dali did was mostly an "extraction,” which is a prelucration of the data offered by a mental image. Sometimes this comes close to the source, through trance and a back and forth process of capturing the essential features and traces generated by the mental image. The highly elaborated dreamscapes of Dali are not depictions of mental images. The span life of a mental image is sometimes as short as several milliseconds.
Larry

What would it take to make a mental image a public performance? What would it take to make private mental image objects, public? Can't mental images be shared and passed on through the spoken word as in descriptions of events or physical objects that are then viewed in the mind? Can a collective public mental image, say the american flag, be considered a public mental image?

Edited by author 12-08-2006 02:17 PM
Stanley,

No. Art is a public performance. Mental images are private mental objects.

Art can can be the attempt to capture or record mental images. Larry Bonn Phoenix is a Chicago artist who has done so. There are links on my site relevant to this.

http://www.gis.net/~tbirch/hart.htm

http://www.gis.net/~tbirch/selfob.htm

http://www.gis.net/~tbirch/ex2sub.swf

Art can be based on mental images. Chagall, Dali and many others have claimed to use dream images as the basis for their art.

Conceptual art is quite different. It is art that is about art, often with political or social overtones (in my opinion -- I am not a artist).

Thanks for asking.

Can the actual image in the mind be claimed as the actual art 'object'? Is this what the conceptual artists did? What example of art and which artist claimed this in the history of art?

Edited by author 11-28-2006 12:36 AM
Katy,
I get this all the time! All I can say is it's common, and it goes back to the beginning of the last century when this was first noticed. It's also very, very dubious that anyone has NO imagery ability.
Go to my web page http://www.gis.net/~tbirch/hp5.html
Complete all the online experiments:
Imagery Types:
After-images Eidetic Hallucinogenic Memory
Imagination Imagination/Memory Projected Thought
Was your husband sucessful in every test (except the edetic)? Of course! I have never heard of anyone who was not. Your husband has visual mental imagery ability. HOW he does what he does -- in the inner workings of the brain -- is quite another matter!
Tony Birch, Ph.D.

Hi,
I was just searching the web on some information on mental imagery.
My husband has an inability to view images in his mind. He says that as long as he can remember he has never been able to see an image or color within his mind and his thought processes are only in an audible format. Although he "only" thinks in this format he is very intelligent and functions well. He usually has several thought streams at the same time (even up to 7 or 8 different ones at once). I asked him to close his eyes and visualize a red ball and no matter how hard he tried he couldn't. I asked him if he could see his dreams and he says he doesn't generally have dreams, and when he does they are just audible thoughts like when he's awake and no images. He has tried some image tests and although he was able to solve some by calculation (i.e. the cube one) he was still unable to visualize anything within his mind. Perhaps there are many more people out there that think like this and more research is needed.

mollypearl,
Your self description is quite common. You mean you do not normally have long-term memory images. But if you dream, you do have images and they are related to the other phenomena. Also (as I never tire of saying) if you literally have NO images, then you can't do the basic imagery tests I supply on my site. And I have never had anyone say they can't do the basic tests. So...I stick by my claim: everyone has mental images, everyone (except the severely handicapped) can do elementary mental rotation and other tasks involving imagery, and everyone dreams. Granted, some people do not have mental images when they think linguistically, but there is nothing unusual about that. Indeed, it is necessary, since images (qua pictorial information) themselves cannot be the vehicles of thought.

Just discovered the site! 40 years ago (I was 30) a yoga instructor informed me that I must not have a soul because I told him I could not visualize a candle flame and that, furthermore, I had NEVER seen anything in my mind's eye, whatever that was. All this was quite a revelation to me because I had no idea that people saw/pictured actual images in their minds. Thus began a long journey, starting with bewilderment, envy, etc., and eventual spiritual isolation. I recognize you when I see you, but I can't 'picture' your face when you're gone. [My son asks me how do I even manage to think? I respond that I talk silently with myself] I can and do dream, but apparently they're unrelated. I have often wondered if there are others like me since we, as children, are never assessed as 'visualizer' or 'non-visualizer'. I have so many thoughts, theories and questions and would like to hear how others may have coped or wired around this very real enigma. Wonder if hallucinogens would provoke imagery in non-imagers?

i am interested in visualization can you support me with tools for assessing this ability?
i have known that Betts' Questionnaire Upon Mental Imagery,
the Gordon Test of Visual Imagery Control,
the Verbalizer-Visualizer Questionnaire,
are used by many researchers in this field but i did not manage to get any of them if you can support me with them i would be so grateful.
thanks

Glenn,
Interesting post! The first of its kind I have run across. You might be interested in the paper on alien abductions, which may mention the propensity of people in sleep or near sleep conditions to visualize "people shapes." It stands to reason that our cognitive system is "hard wired" with certain forms of facial recognition mechanisms. This may be a manifestation of it "freewheeling" so to speak. See my subway map for the link to Aliens.
Tony

When I close my eyes at night to sleep, usually I see blackness, but not always. I wonder if many other people experience the following: Images of people in gray and black outline with shades of white, sometimes color appears. These people are doing many different things. The most common is a social or group event. Their clothing varies, the scenery varies. I can usually zoom in on someone and bring their face or body very close to me for better view. The images change rapidly, unless I make effort to hold it. If I want to start the pictures flowing when they are not automatically doing so, I can pear into the blackness and bring them into vision. I can do this for entertainment. I can view objects and places and structures also, but people are much easier.

I wonder: am I seeing real people somewhere? If you experience this kind of thing too, please let me know.

glenncnx@hotmail.com

Julie,

To answer your question briefly: Yes, neuroscientists claim to know the mechanism underlying this. Stephen Kosslyn is one of the chief exponents of the theory that the mind stores visual/space positional information in discrete bits of information, much in the same manner as a camcorder. This information is then "replayed" by "displaying" it in the visual cortex (the site in the brain responsible for vision). Hence, the subject "sees again" the original information when it is recalled on the "inner visual screen" (visual cortex). My site pages have an extensive discussion of this theory, especially in chapters 4 and 5 of the Advanced Pages, but also throughout the Introduction.
MRI studies of the brain demonstrate that the visual cortex is stimulated during imagery tasks.

There are formidable objections, however, to this theory.

1. Your description of how YOUR mind works is probably typical of how perhaps several BILLION other people would describe the workings of their minds. But MANY others would not agree. Some people claim -- and many messages in this forum demonstrate this -- that they have NO mental images.

2. The MIND does (for some) seem to operate this way, but elementary considerations in information theory argue strongly against the view that the mind/brain system can actually REdisplay information for "private viewing" and reinterpretation. The information MUST already be there, so the "display" phenomenon that we witness is strictly epiphenomenal. The "viewing" that seems to occur to us is actually of no significance in obtaining the information. Pylyshyn (again see my pages throughout) has argued strongly for this view.

3. My view: Skepticism. Other than the bald phenomenological fact that there ARE mental images (mental objects) that we are directly acquainted with, there is NO completely coherent theory that addresses both the facts of our mental life and the requirements of a contemporary information science/neuroscience model. Neuroscience models seem to me to invariably restate the homunculus problem: they posit an "inner viewer" that must "see" or "interpret" the information -- which is just stating the problem of consciousness all over again.

My mind operates similar to a camcorder and live visual footage is constantly displayed for private viewing. Do any neuroscientists know the underlying mechanisms behind such an ability?

Greetings, once more. I hope to revise (again!) my site, but in the meantime, please do not include any links to commercial sites in the messages you post here (even if you think there is a good reason to do so). Messages with links will be deleted. (A few remain, below, but I will soon archive this entire board).
Feel free to contribute to the discussion.
T.B.

The web site has recently undergone revision. I will continue to update and improve files during the next few weeks. A diagram for Freud's dream mechanism will be posted soon. My "poem" was recently revised. Stay tuned.

Onthink,
Well, it is just my opinion that these remain mysteries. People like Daniel Dennett write books like "Consciousness Explained" and seem to get away with it.
T.

Tony
yup, what you said, make me realize something i have never thought about. last words in your post:remain mysteries,make me make sigh!



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arts

Golia, many people think what you suggest could be done. I doubt, however, that philosophers would agree. Even if all the information and dispositions stored in one human being could be transferfed to another body, this would create just another person similar to the original -- it would not transfer consciousness. At least, it is not obvious that it would transfer consciousness. The concept of consciousness is distinct from the information that consciousness takes as an object. Also bear in mind that mental images, as I have defined them, are conscious objects. So there is NO sense in which they exist qua objects when we are not conscious of them. This raises the issue of what DOES exist in the mind/brain that can generate mental images when we are not conscious of them. Certainly, it is absolutely circular argumentation to assert: "mental images" exist in the mind/brain prior to our consciousness of them. In addition, such an assertion commits the fallacy of likening mental images to physical images. In my view, we can do little better than
Aristotle's answer even today: mental images exist potentially in the mind/brain. HOW they exist within the constraints of the physical world, and how consciousness is possible, remain mysteries.

Edited by author 07-25-2004 01:14 PM
Describe the mental images is very important:
I think, well combine the information tech and biologic tech on mental images would possibily make man can live forever.

Well, first I think we can save all the information in one's mental images that include his/her logic and reaction structure. Here we need the advancing of Information Tech and mental images.Then we clone the one into a complete analogic young body.Later, we can input all the brain information(mental images) to the young body's brain. That is what we make us live forever in near future,I think.However, we have to face the moral challenge and settle all the moral problem in human being itself before we do this to make sure that what we would have done will not hurt the respect of mankind itself and god and soul.
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From:Chinese Arts

Jim, and thank you for your quesitons and conversation. I hope to improve my site by expanding on some of the issues you raised. As for life, its progress, and its ending, I too agree with Shakespeare's Hamlet: "the readiness is all."

Edited by author 10-03-2003 07:52 AM
Tony, all we have is words and the cryptic nature of mine often says everything and nothing. In reference to the bad things that have happened, I have done my best work yet. Everyones needs are being meet to the benefit of everyone. Like "The Man" said "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". Then there is the matter of me turning 50. I had a great life and I have a great life. For the last thirty years I have lived my life to be complete. What I mean by that is I have done as much as possible and I am ok to die whenever it comes. As to our discussion, The reality is that I am an old geezer, glad to find someone smart to argue with. I will be busy for a while but I might come back. Thanks

Jim, to answer your question re analog data storage: analog storage was in fact a popular theory in the 30s, before digital computers. A simple example: phonograph records store an analog image of a sound by physically altering a plastic material. (Shades of Aristotle's "wax impression" theory of memory!) So it is possible that material is altered in this way in the brain. Another idea was that since electrical energy is caused by FIELDS (the E and B vectors in physics) these fields can be altered into various configurations, including, for example, standing waves. A standing wave might encode, for example, a sound, an image, perhaps even "an idea." Some of the latest popular theories take off on the idea of universal fields as the mechanism of the coordinated, "intelligent" quantum universe we seem to be a part of. The digital theories (in my view) lack, as you pointed out, some of the analog features that seem necessary to describe the mind.
Again, I caution you about taking our own ways of understanding information storage and retrieval too seriously. Nature has its own ways.
Does not nature, then, "run" on (digital) RNA/DNA coding? I am not knowledgeable enough in this area to answer your question very well. But it seems to me that genetic coding represents only the outline of an organism. Human RNA/DNA does not represent, for example, any of the developed thoughts, dreams, or aspirations of a developed human being. Genetic "instructions" are "vague", as far as I know.
If you are concerned about your "lack of mental images" from a personal standpoint, then it is perfectly possible that just as some people fixate on some mental image, others may block some mental images for some reason.
I am not sure if this applies to the point you are trying to make but, "the lack of images" has been studied in clinical psychology. For instance, it has been found that some young black women have difficulty forming an image of their father. I believe studies of this sort can be found in The Journal of Mental Imagery (available in many research libraries -- I hope I have the title right.)

I myself have many visual memories that I would as soon do without. Although I am also skeptical of psychological theories that provide a "total solution" to the human psyche, I do think there may be something to Freudian and/or Jungian psychology. You might get something out of a review of their theories. And there are many self help books for various life circumstances...overeating, loss of loved ones in an accident, victim of a crime, poor childhood, etc. -- some of these books are actually good to study.
Hope some of that helps.

Tony, thank you for your consideration of my questions. On the issue of a binary logic system of brain memory. I seem to remember that it is not without precident in human structure. Does it not exist in some form in genetic and chromosonal structures? I find it hard to fathom an analog system of memory storage considering the electrical nature of the brain. Electrical memory in an analog wave system. How would you store that? It seems to be even more problematic. It is true that I find my my functional and adequate and functional. It is certainly more interesting and easy to study a person with vivid images in their minds. How could you even put a hook into no images? The nurologists I have talked to have no clue. This is is the frst time I have gone out from myself to see if anyone studied lack of imagery. Recent tragic events have brought cause for me to study again the source of my inborn nihilism through my mental processes and its compartments. I think that my lack of mental imagery is one of the main keys.

Edited by author 09-28-2003 11:16 AM
Jim, great question. Try this: you may find a difference between imagining a red apple and remembering a specific apple (as far as the ability to form an image goes). Your question deals with existence of a "mind's eye" a key and very controversial notion in the literature on mental images. Kosslyn has held something like the view you describe, where the brain is likened to a computer. Kosslyn believes he has discovered mechanisms that perform operations similar to what you describe. The problem comes when he tries to explain "the mind's eye." Now we have to abandon the computer metaphor -- suddenly, access to information, consciousness, etc. becomes holistic, analog, explained by the METAPHOR of VISION. Kosslyn (and others) would not admit it, but their reasoning is circular. They attempt to explain (inner) vision by appealing to our already understood concept of (outer) vision. This is the well-known "homunculus problem" in the philosophy of mind. It originated with Descartes, who tried to explain vision by positing a non-extended substance that resides "in" the brain in order to "see" what the eye and brain "sees." Part of his reasoning is right: the eye and brain, qua mere mechanism, is utterly incapable of conscious vision. Just as a video camera cannot consciously see, it is impossible for any mere mechanism to see.
Well, I have strayed from your question or immediate concern. You speak of "corruption of data." I have cautioned you above about the computer metaphor, but corruption of data or processes not working right is still a viable idea. But people's minds work differently. The question is: do you find your memory and imagination adequate and functional as far as you are concerned. James argued (correctly, I think) that there is no single form of the human imagination. There may be as many forms as there are individuals. Mozart could hear a piece once and then play it. Some artists draw from memory. Some can remembers names, and not faces. Others vice versa. So I do not think there is anything "wrong" if you cannot "see" the image of "generalized apple." It may be impossible. Locke was criticized for his notion that there was an image of a "generalized triangle" It is easy (for most people I think) to inwardly "see" an Isosceles triangle -- but not just "any triangle."
As for HOW the mind actually stores and retrieves "data" -- I have no idea. And neither, I think does anyone else if they were honest about it and did not insist on their favorite technology, metaphor, or scientific theory.

I hope some of this helped...

P.S. Notice that you can also edit a message, as I did with this one. If you wrote the message, an edit button appears on the right of the message.

P.P.S. Another problem that is conveniently overlooked in many contemporary theories of the mind that use the computer metaphor is this: why would there be a "conversion" of one form of data ("binary") to another ("analog") in the mind? What is the basis for this in evolutionary theory? How is it possible that human beings actually embody a form of computer technology, actually using "binary data" to store information? This method of handling data derives from human innovation itself. Searle, and others, have argued (correctly, in my view) that to suppose biology actually functions as a computer is utterly fantastic.

Correction: not where the photons are converted to electrical impulses at the eye, but at the minds eye

My mechanical view of projected mental images is as follows and correct me if I am wrong. I want to see a red apple in my mind. The conscious mind is an analog wave and I want to see a red apple in my mind with my eyes closed. This wave has to go through an analog to digital conversion. The information of what a red apple looks like is stored in the brain as binary logic bits as is a hard drive in a computer. The converter is stimulated by the wave calling for information and produces an electric pulse to search for the bits necessary to put together an image of a red apple. These bits are reconverted to an analog wave that the conscious mind can relate to. I suspect that the projection of this red apple would occur in the area of the brain where photons are converted to visual sight. The possibility of corruption of this information is in every aspect of the process. I know the red apple is in my mind but somthing is not working right. Under less than natural conditions I have viewed clear and colorfull images with my conscious mind in operation. I was aware that these images were hallucinations. What happened to allow these images through is beyond me to connect under ordinary conditions.

Jim, nice description of trying to capture a hypnopompic image (images we have just before waking, see http://www.gis.net/~tbirch/mi2c.htm). The experience is not uncommon. Having "no images" has been studied. It came up in the research on dreams and with Shepard and Metzler's cubes. Some subjects claimed to have no images but tests showed they had dreams, and, of course, they could do the Shepard and Metzler task. (I added a new link with other information on Shepard and Metzler, main page). There are then, it seems to me, people who claim to have few or no images -- and we might give that a name, "hypoiconia," versus those who claim to "think in images" (also a dubious claim), "hypericonia." Hypoiconic individuals might tend to be scientists or philosophers, because they tend to think in abstractions and their conscious minds automatically dissolve "the matter," (Aristotle's term for some kinds of mental contents), i.e., the image, that was used in the solution of a problem -- so that the conscious mind only registers "the result of deliberation" and not all the steps used in the deliberation (which may have included an image). There is an important, related, phenomenon also studied recently: the brains of some people with impaired vision apparently "see" an image even though as far as the subject is concerned, their consciousness "sees" nothing. The phenomenon is called blindsight. It suggests a rift between brain processes and mind processes.

My consciously projected images seem to wash out in the glare of my conscious mind. I know I have some amount of visual dreams as I start to wake in the morning. When I reach enough conscious to go after the images, they evaporate. I know the mental images are in the back of my conscious mind and they guide me when I do spatial tasks. If I try to look at the image it goes away,like the names of long time frends whose names cannot be acessed when I try to introduce them to someone. The name will come to me, the mental image will not. It's interesting that you mentioned scientists in your response. Spot the trend. My major in college changed from electro-mechanics, to geology, to philosophy. I wonder if like me, many scientists are also nihilists in the classic Russian sense of Bazarov in Ivan Turgenevs' Fathers and Sons. I am not looking to be cured. I find it hard to believe that no one has studied this image problem and hasn't given it a nice Greek name.

Jim, many people claim that they have no mental images. At the turn of the century, a questionnaire was circulated among many of the foremost thinkers in England. Many important scientists claimed not to have "visual" memories at all. If that makes you feel any better, good! See my FAQs link on the main page. But since the turn of the century, we have improved our investigative techniques. In fact, there are probably very few people who truly have NO mental imagery capabilities. Try all the experiments and tests on the "Experimental Line" of the MI Subway. If you REALLY have no ability to make mental images you will not be able to do some of the tests. (Forget the Eidetic tests.) However, the tests themselves do not settle a more difficult issue: what ARE mental images? Things we consciously experience or mechanical processes in the mind that we are not be conscious of?

I am curious about my inability to project mental images. is there a scientific or medical name for this condition? I remember once as a child, when I had a high fever, that I had seen actual color and vivid detail. Could someone point me in the right direction to any relevent studies

Edited by author 08-27-2003 01:55 PM
Note to self:
Yes, try to correct those typos and spelling errors. I recently visited a web site that had a lot of them, and it does cause you to think "this person does not know what they are doing." But they were trying to sell a $2000-$5000 product! At least my site is non-commercial. Well, OK, I would like it if people took a look at www.mindtools.net (which is "under development" and far from a polished product as of now), but that is about it. I have posted some comments on Whale Rider and would be interested to see if others think the film is problematic, unconvincing, or just heart warming, etc.
P.S. Paige: I corrected most of the errors on the Films pages. Most of them were on the What Works and What Doesn't page.

Edited by author 08-11-2003 08:23 PM
Thanks. I, like many others in academe, suffer from the ability to see mistakes in all written work but my own. Wundt, one of my favorites in the history of psychology, wrote about the problem in the late 1800's! I do have (now) a spell check web development program that will partially correct the problem. If you have not seen the film Whale Rider yet you might be interested since it is set in New Zealand. It deals with the postmodern problem of competition between narratives: from the "master" culture and that of indeginous peoples -- but in a "family film" context. I will post some comments about it, and I would welcome comments from others.

Your analyses of popular movies seem to be quite analytical and intelligent but it loses a bit of credibility when the whole document is riddled with typos and spelling mistakes. Just an observation, great website though!

Fair enough... I agree that the crimes of the Stalinist Soviet Union were (and are) undeniable. This is not the issue. Stalinism is the anti-thesis of Marxism. This was fundamentally true in 1917 and remains so today. The popular association of this totalitarian bureaucratic regime, which murdered 10 million revolutionaries in cold blood, with the terms "socialism" and "communism" is both a falsehood and a convenient tool wielded by capitalist governments and their agents (talkback radio, the mass media, the church etc). However, you concede that your web site is not intended to be an in-depth analysis - so I'll leave it at that, and sorry to have bothered you.

Edited by author 08-30-2003 10:13 PM
I can't put every nuance into my comments -- which are just that, comments, not in-depth analyses. In any event, I would agree (if that is your implication) that communism has many forms. I also think that communism, as Marx envisioned it has never really been tried. I think Marx’s famous passage on the four forms of alienated labor is basically correct as a description of some of the problems of industrialization. Some people point to Cuba as an example of a form of communism that would be economically viable, were it not for the U.S. embargo. There may be other examples of communist or socialist economies to put forward. So, of course, “communism” as a theory is not identical the political practices of the late Soviet Union. But the particular brand of totalitarian terrorism (Soviet Communism) as actually practiced represents one of the most abysmal epochs in all of human history. I think that is undeniable. (I also lived in former communist country immediately after the fall of Soviet Communism – so my knowledge here is not just theoretical.) There was a time, in the mid 80s, when intellectuals in this country would sometimes take the stance that the U.S. and Soviet systems were somehow “morally equivalent.” I reject that view. Nevertheless, there were (as I experienced directly) some features of community life that developed under Soviet Communism that were relatively “healthy” – and they are features that we sorely lack here. My political “view,” therefore, is a more like “skepticism about political solutions, but a belief in the importance of certain principles, such as: liberal democracy, existential humanism, and narrative.” Other people have fully-developed, complex, political and social philosophies. I do not. I have sentiments, comments, and opinions. Perhaps my ambivalence and skepticism is what you object to in my site.

Hahaha... thank you for your response. You may not think of my critical approach as "typically academic", so to speak, but that is because I am easily able to see the inherent flaws in your reasoning concerning certain issues - not the least of which includes your identifying the word "communism" with the former Soviet Union. This is a common - but telling - mistake amongst "liberals" and other apologists.

Thank you. I do not consider my analysis of social, politica, or cultural phenomena either very trendy or even particularly insightful -- but it is nice to have a reaction to it. "Trendy" would be any of the postmodern approaches, which I find wanting. My comments may have a minor entertainment value for some people, and I hope might help them in their own critical understanding of issues.

I recently concocted a term to describe people like you: "Po-Mo homo" (by no means intended as a homophobic slur). You display a profound ignorance in your "analysis" of social, political and cultural phenomena. I hope you fester in your "trendy" academic backwardness, you cowardly charlatan.

used the site for citing

Edited by author 04-14-2003 07:28 AM
Greetings! You have reached the Mental Images: Philosophical Psychology and Films and Popular Culture Discussion Boards. Feel free to post any message or question here you like. Other participants may give you feed back. Also post any information you have about links to other sources here. It will help improve our web site. Just click on the POST A NEW MESSAGE BUTTON above to get started. Your email address remains confidential. -- Tony Birch, Ph.D.