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12 - The Visual Imagination

from Part II - Imagery-Based Forms of the Imagination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2020

By
Joel Pearson
Edited by
Anna Abraham
Anna Abraham
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
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Summary

Visual imagery can be advantageous in much of cognition, unnecessary (aphantasia), to clinically disruptive (PTSD). It allows us to disconnect our senses from reality and test out virtual combinations of sensory experience. With many methodological constraints now overcome, research has shown that visual imagery involves a network of brain areas from frontal cortex to sensory areas and it can function much like a weak version of afferent perception. Imagery vividness and strength range from completely absent (aphantasia) to photo-like (hyperphantasia). Both the anatomy and function of the primary visual cortex are related to visual imagery. The use of imagery as a tool has been linked to a many superordinate compound cognitive processes. Imagery plays both symptomatic and mechanistic roles in neurological and mental disorders, and some of their treatments. Although many unanswered questions remain, we now have multiple objective methods to investigate imagery, and hence shed light not just on imagery, but on the many reliant cognitive processes

Keywords

Visual imageryaphantasiahyperphantasiaobjective imagery measurementvisual perceptionhow to measure imageryphantom perceptioninvoluntary imageryvoluntary imagery
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination , pp. 175 - 186
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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