Image and Brain: The Resolution of the Imagery Debate

Published 1 January 1994

Stephen M. Kosslyn

Citations1,323

Abstract

Kosslyn (psychology, Harvard U.) presents a 20-year research program on the nature of high-level vision and mental imagery--offering his research as a definitive resolution of the long-standing “imagery debate,” which centers on the nature of the internal representation of visual mental imagery. He combines insights and empirical results from computer vision, neurobiology, and cognitive science to develop a general theory of visual mental imagery, its relation to visual perception, and its implementation in the human brain.

Keywords

Neuroscience

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The MIT Press eBooksThe Visual Brain in Action

3,359 Citations2002A. David Milner, Melvyn A. Goodale

NatureA neurological dissociation between perceiving objects and grasping them

1,518 Citations1991Melvyn A. Goodale, A. David Milner +2 more

The quantitative analyses demonstrate strikingly accurate guidance of hand and finger movements directed at the very objects whose qualities she fails to perceive and suggest that the neural substrates for the visual perception of object qualities such as shape, orientation and size are distinct from those underlying the use of those qualities in the control of manual skills.

Medical Entomology and ZoologyThe neural and behavioural organization of goal-directed movements

1,175 Citations1988Marc Jeannerod

NatureLarge adjustments in visually guided reaching do not depend on vision of the hand or perception of target displacement

994 Citations1986Melvyn A. Goodale, Denis Pélisson +1 more

Evidence is presented that a change in the position of a visual target during a reaching movement can modify the trajectory even when vision of the hand is prevented, and the mechanisms that maintain the apparent stability of a target in space are dissociable from those that mediate the visuomotor outputdirected at that target.

Trends in NeurosciencesVisual imagery and visual representation

237 Citations1994Per E. Roland, Balázs Gulyás

This hypothesis is consistent with the view that objects, scenes and living beings are represented, stored and re-evoked outside the domain of the primary visual cortex and its immediate neighbours.

International Journal of Computer VisionThe viewpoint consistency constraint

209 Citations1987David Lowe

It will be shown that the effective application of the viewpoint consistency constraint, in conjunction with bottom-up image description based upon principles of perceptual organization, can lead to robust three-dimensional object recognition from single gray-scale images.

NatureDissociation between mental imagery and object recognition in a brain-damaged patient

191 Citations1992Marlene Behrmann, Gordon Winocur +1 more

It is concluded that rich internal representations can be activated to support visual imagery even when they cannot support visually mediated perception of objects.

Journal of Cognitive NeurosciencePreserved Visual Imagery and Categorization in a Case of Associative Visual Agnosia

92 Citations1992Janet Jankowiak, Marcel Kinsbourne +2 more

A patient with associative visual agnosia secondary to a penetrating bitemporooccipital lesion remained able to draw complex objects from memory but could not subsequently recognize his sketches, infering a preserved ability to derive internal visual images from semantic memory.

Trends in NeurosciencesVisual imagery: an interaction between memory retrieval and focal attention

63 Citations1994Kenji Sakai, Yasushi Miyashita

This proposal agrees with the result reported by Roland and Guly&s 2, that occipito-temporal visual association areas are involved in visual imagery, and proposes a model that represents visual imagery as an interaction between memory retrieval and focal attention mechanisms.