Psychobiology, picture an orange....

picture an orange....

Author	Message
g.. #1 / 5	picture an orange.... Perhaps I should have come to this group first. I lack the ability to visualize an image . ( any image) I have never been able to do so. I don't know if this is a common occurrence . Could you please direct me to some information ? Please post here,as the email path is invalid. Thank you in advance. P.H.
Thu, 06 Sep 2001 03:00:00 GMT

Marcello Spinell #2 / 5	picture an orange.... You are not the 1st person I have heard say this. I know of two other people, one a professor in a graduate program, the other a doct{filter} student (both in neuroscience). They lack the ability to conjure a mental image either with their eyes opened or closed. When remembering a visual image, it seems they painstakingly encode the entire thing verbally. I have been looking for the neural basis of this condition as well, but have not really found any studies on it. Much work has been done on mental imagery and working memory, but I don't know of any studies which explicitly address this. Marcello Spinella, Ph.D. Quote: > Perhaps I should have come to this group first. I lack the ability to > visualize an image . ( any image) I have never been able to do so. I > don't know if this is a common occurrence . Could you please direct me > to some information ? Please post here,as the email path is invalid. > Thank you in advance. P.H.
Mon, 10 Sep 2001 03:00:00 GMT

F. Frank LeFev #3 / 5	picture an orange.... Martha Farah has written extensively on imagery, and though I haven't really kept up with her work I think she relies at least partly on some lesion studies, which might suggest ideas about developmental anomalies. Of course, I have always resisted her conclusion I (if I read and recall her correctly) that this has to do with posterior LEFT hemisphere mechanisms--thinking that this must be an artifact of testing/reporting procedures. Thinking of a compromise position, now: if usual right-hemisphere visual skills are intact, may have to do with conscious, deliberate visualization, perhaps dependant on intact callosal transfer in this region, in contrast to more implicit and/or procedural "use" of images. Come on, Marcello, give the guy a few references from your extensive bibliography, even if not EXACTLY addressing this phenomenon! F. Frank LeFever, Ph.D. New York Neuropsychology Group Quote: >You are not the 1st person I have heard say this. I know of two other >people, one a professor in a graduate program, the other a doct{filter} >student (both in neuroscience). They lack the ability to conjure a >mental image either with their eyes opened or closed. When remembering >a visual image, it seems they painstakingly encode the entire thing >verbally. >I have been looking for the neural basis of this condition as well, but >have not really found any studies on it. Much work has been done on >mental imagery and working memory, but I don't know of any studies which >explicitly address this. >Marcello Spinella, Ph.D. >> Perhaps I should have come to this group first. I lack the ability to >> visualize an image . ( any image) I have never been able to do so. I >> don't know if this is a common occurrence . Could you please direct me >> to some information ? Please post here,as the email path is invalid. >> Thank you in advance. P.H.
Tue, 11 Sep 2001 03:00:00 GMT

Marcello Spinell #4 / 5	picture an orange.... Fair enough, fair enough... [blows dust off of the the visual imagery file] Given the working memory nature of imagery (i.e. retrieving an image from memory and maintaining it in the absence of a stimulus), I have wondered whether prefrontal mechanisms are at work as well. Some studies, it seems, have confirmed this [see Roland and Gulyas below]. It does seem hard to swallow that mental imagery activity would only exist in the left hemisphere when the images are not lateralized. Additionally, it seems that the global or local nature of the imagery task could affect the laterality of the findings: Fink GR, Halligan PW, Marshall JC, Frith CD, Frackowiak RS, Dolan RJ. Where in the brain does visual attention select the forest and the trees? Nature 1996. Aug 15;382(6592):626-8. Doricchi F, Incoccia C. Seeing only the right half of the forest but cutting down all the trees? Nature 1998 Jul 2;394(6688):75-8 Bihrle AM, Bellugi U, Delis D, Marks S. Seeing either the forest or the trees: dissociation in visuospatial processing. Brain Cogn 1989 Sep;11(1):37-49 Marshall JC, Halligan PW. Seeing the forest but only half the trees? Nature 1995 Feb 9;373(6514):521-3. Here are some general references I have on visual imagery. I'm sure a more updated and exhaustive list can be found on medline: Roland and Gulyas. Visual imagery and visual representation. Trends in Neuroscience. 1994. 17(4): 281-7. [actually this whole July 1994 TINS issue has a nice series of articles on the topic] D'Esposito et al. [including M. Farah], A functional MRI study of mental image generation. Neuropsychologia. 1997 One final one on auditory musical imagery: Zatorre et al. Hearing in the mind's ear: a pet invesigation of musical imagery and perception. J. of Cognitive Neuroscience. 1996. 8: 29-46. [In this last study, comparisons of musical perception vs. imagery found activation in inferior frontopolar cortex and right thalamus.] Marcello Spinella, Ph.D. Quote: > Martha Farah has written extensively on imagery, and though I haven't > really kept up with her work I think she relies at least partly on some > lesion studies, which might suggest ideas about developmental > anomalies. > Of course, I have always resisted her conclusion I (if I read and > recall her correctly) that this has to do with posterior LEFT > hemisphere mechanisms--thinking that this must be an artifact of > testing/reporting procedures. > Thinking of a compromise position, now: if usual right-hemisphere > visual skills are intact, may have to do with conscious, deliberate > visualization, perhaps dependant on intact callosal transfer in this > region, in contrast to more implicit and/or procedural "use" of images. > Come on, Marcello, give the guy a few references from your extensive > bibliography, even if not EXACTLY addressing this phenomenon! > F. Frank LeFever, Ph.D. > New York Neuropsychology Group
Fri, 14 Sep 2001 03:00:00 GMT

Jacob L. Driesen, Ph.D #5 / 5	picture an orange.... Hello, This may or not be a significant problem. Highly verbal people often have such difficulties. I know some colleagues like this (as well as myself): they are highly knowledgeable and competent, extremely bright, with intact brains and nervous systems. But, they have a lot of trouble visualizing even the most simple objects when formally tested to do so. If you ask them to draw a pen, they can do so. If you later have them close their eyes and visualize a pen, they tend to come up blank. It seems that such brains are short on visualization as a strategy, while long on the use of verbalizations. The human brain in such circumstances is really trying to deal with concepts (like an orange - its a concept of a round fruit with an uneven skin, colored orange). The ability to know what an orange is is the important point, not how your particular brain deals with it. Unless you have other sensory problems, I would not worry about this. Your brain just utilizes a different strategy (based upon the wiring within it) than do visualizing brains. If you have more questions, or wish to discuss this further, please write to my e-mail address.
Sat, 15 Sep 2001 03:00:00 GMT

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