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Acknowledging that I know nothing about psychology or neuroscience... It's interesting that they were not able to extract good images from the test when they j

Acknowledging that I know nothing about psychology or neuroscience... It's interesting that they were not able to extract good images from the test when they just asked the subjects to imagine the pictures. I speculate that is because the vast majority of people are able to recognize images of things, but not produce those images. For a simple example, see this article about people trying to draw a bicycle. Before clicking, try to draw a 2D representation of a bicycle -- the wheels, the frame, pedals, handlebars, etc. You'd be surprised how difficult it is. https://road.cc/content/blog/90885-science-cycology-can-you-draw-bicycle https://road.cc/content/blog/90885-science-cycology-can-you-... I would be very interested to see them repeat the experiment on e.g. artists who specialize in photorealism, or asking an expert on a very particular thing to imagine that particular thing (e.g. ask a violinist to imagine a violin). I wonder if that would yield more recognizable results than asking a random grad student to visualize a lion's face.

PinkMilkshake 8y ago
> It's interesting that they were not able to extract good images from the test when they just asked the subjects to imagine the pictures. I speculate that is because the vast majority of people are able to recognize images of things, but not produce those images. It seems reasonable to me. To use a computer as an analogy, the set of signals produced by a webcam recording a video to a hard drive are not going to be the same as the ones of the video playing from the hard drive on to the screen.
- NegativeLatency 8y ago
  Or another way: the data in a frame buffer is not the same as the data in a png file.
jfoutz 8y ago
Feynman wrote about this in one of his books. it's really hard to understand how someone else understands something. but you can say, well imagine it's orange and spherical and kind of hairy, and they'll have a picture in their mind you can kinda work with.
- schoen 8y ago
  Are you sure you're not thinking of the "hairy green ball thing" from his discussion of visualizing topology examples? https://books.google.com/books?id=_gA_DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT87&lpg=PT87&dq=feynman+%22hairy+green+ball+thing https://books.google.com/books?id=_gA_DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT87&lpg=P...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- bemmu 8y ago
  From "What Do You Care What Other People Think": I was a kid growing up in Far Rockaway, I had a friend named Bernie Walker. We both had “labs” at home, and we would do various “experiments.” One time, we were discussing something — we must have been eleven or twelve at the time — and I said, “But thinking is nothing but talking to yourself inside. “Oh yeah?” Bernie said. “Do you know the crazy shape of the crankshaft in a car?” “Yeah, what of it?” “Good. Now, tell me: how did you describe it when you were talking to yourself?” So I learned from Bernie that thoughts can be visual as well as verbal.
lsh 8y ago
there is also evidence this ability to conjure imagery in our minds simply does not exist for some: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia which leads me to wonder if the capability exists on a spectrum and is stronger or weaker in some. A stronger capability might correlate to a stronger 'signal' ...?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- miguelrochefort 8y ago
  Do people actually see images of things in their head? I can close my eyes and think of something, but I won't perceive anything more than a linear description of it. At best, I can use these visual descriptions to draw an outline in my head, but it instantly fades out if I don't continuously re-draw it. Kind of like this: https://i.imgur.com/0zuPIPV.gifv https://i.imgur.com/0zuPIPV.gifv
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    I have no issue conjuring clear images when closing eyes. I guess it depends how your brain is wired and this is probably why we have ways to refer people who are good at drawing, painting, etc. They probably have a mix of clear visualization and very good hand/finger coordination.
    - miguelrochefort 8y ago
      - Can you imagine the color of the floor, walls and ceiling at work? - Can you imagine the color of the eyes and hairs of your coworkers? - Can you imagine the home screen of your phone and see how many application icons can fit in a row and column? - Can you imagine Google's logo and see the color of each letter? - Can you imagine your car manufacturer's logo and draw it?
      - sidmani 8y ago
        1) I can do that easily, and even can imagine the paint texture for the walls. 2) Hair for all of them, but I can only picture the eyes of the people who had unusual colors (blue, gray, green). Maybe I never paid much attention if they had normal brown eyes. 3) Row yes, but I wasn't sure about the column (4 or 5). 4) Yes. 5) easiest task on the list.
westoncb 8y ago
I think what's maybe misleading here is that while there may be an accurate representation of a bicycle somewhere in someone's brain, that does not mean they're able to consciously access it and, e.g., recreate it through a task of complex motor coordination etc. (in order to produce a drawing, I mean). However, if you are using an fMRI, as in the paper, all you need is the accurate representation somewhere (and you need to know where that somewhere is of course). Another example: let's say you look at a picture of cheetah. Now you try to imagine it; what appears to you is a vague sort of resemblance but nowhere near as clear as when you were looking directly at it. But, just because the prompting for you to imagine the image didn't cause an accurate recreation in consciousness, doesn't mean it didn't occur elsewhere, perhaps at some earlier/lower-level stage of visual processing.
- gamegoblin 8y ago
  I don't think the "draw a bicycle" task involves complex motor coordination. It's drawing 2 circles and ~10 straight lines. Doesn't need to be photorealistic, just in the correct configuration. For example, I cannot visualize a 13-sided polygon accurately, but I can draw one pretty easily without having any drawing skills.
  - westoncb 8y ago
    True. I hesitated to use that as an example because of the potential for confusion—but to clarify, I just meant that the motor skills are an example of another thing being involved beyond a clear representation somewhere, not that they are actually the limiting factor for reproducing the drawing. A more realistic problem in the case of the bicycle drawing has to do with the procedural knowledge they use for drawing. For instance, maybe they approach it analytically, top-down, breaking it into major components to draw first, and those into sub components. Well, in order to do that, they need explicit knowledge of that hierarchy; they may have an accurate representation of the image somewhere, but they can't bring it directly into consciousness, and they didn't break it into that hierarchy while they had it around. So now what's left to them is to attempt to produce the hierarchy from an imperfectly recalled image, which leads to the strange configurations. Just a guess—but I wouldn't be surprised to learn it's something on those lines.
docbrown 8y ago
Basing this on my rough memory of abnormal and developmental psych, the article and example you’re presenting is a type of Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rey%E2%80%93Osterrieth_complex_figure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rey%E2%80%93Osterrieth_complex...]. Some people may be able to produce a bicycle in more details than others but that depends on how developed and healthy their brain is to use their executive functions. Without knowing all of the subjects medical history—early dementia, strokes, all the good stuff- and current health, it’d come as no surprise that even consciously we cannot produce true representations of what we saw. Police sketches from eye witnesses may be a good thing to look at when thinking of producing images from memory. Some people have better brain health and are able to utilize many different high and low-level functions to produce more accurate descriptions. Others not so much.
- zadler 8y ago
  How does one improve brain health?
  - docbrown 8y ago
    Harvard updated their Buzzfeedesque post on this topic [https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/12-ways-to-keep-your-brain-young https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/12-ways-to-keep...] which spans from crossword puzzles to avoiding alcohol. But to keep it simple: read, do puzzles, stay active, do not drink or do drugs heavily. —— Everybody already has a genetic makeup that limits their health—especially the brain—to a preset level. Some people suffer from infantile amnesia—basically not remembering early developmental stages (2-4) and preadolescent (~10 y/o); other’s claim to remember their birth (which is silly since ability to form memories is 2 y/o+). Some have the luxury of having strong working memory^1—a fancy word for temporary memories—but suffers from lackluster short-term memory. I’m sure you get the point I was trying to make with that mediocre explanation. tldr: You can not change your brain to not have dementia if your genetic makeup says so. You can however delay the onset possibly by keeping your brain active on a daily basis. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_memory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_memory
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

PinkMilkshake 8y ago

> It's interesting that they were not able to extract good images from the test when they just asked the subjects to imagine the pictures. I speculate that is because the vast majority of people are able to recognize images of things, but not produce those images. It seems reasonable to me. To use a computer as an analogy, the set of signals produced by a webcam recording a video to a hard drive are not going to be the same as the ones of the video playing from the hard drive on to the screen.

NegativeLatency 8y ago
Or another way: the data in a frame buffer is not the same as the data in a png file.

jfoutz 8y ago

Feynman wrote about this in one of his books. it's really hard to understand how someone else understands something. but you can say, well imagine it's orange and spherical and kind of hairy, and they'll have a picture in their mind you can kinda work with.

schoen 8y ago
Are you sure you're not thinking of the "hairy green ball thing" from his discussion of visualizing topology examples? https://books.google.com/books?id=_gA_DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT87&lpg=PT87&dq=feynman+%22hairy+green+ball+thing https://books.google.com/books?id=_gA_DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT87&lpg=P...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bemmu 8y ago
From "What Do You Care What Other People Think": I was a kid growing up in Far Rockaway, I had a friend named Bernie Walker. We both had “labs” at home, and we would do various “experiments.” One time, we were discussing something — we must have been eleven or twelve at the time — and I said, “But thinking is nothing but talking to yourself inside. “Oh yeah?” Bernie said. “Do you know the crazy shape of the crankshaft in a car?” “Yeah, what of it?” “Good. Now, tell me: how did you describe it when you were talking to yourself?” So I learned from Bernie that thoughts can be visual as well as verbal.

lsh 8y ago

there is also evidence this ability to conjure imagery in our minds simply does not exist for some: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia which leads me to wonder if the capability exists on a spectrum and is stronger or weaker in some. A stronger capability might correlate to a stronger 'signal' ...?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
miguelrochefort 8y ago
Do people actually see images of things in their head? I can close my eyes and think of something, but I won't perceive anything more than a linear description of it. At best, I can use these visual descriptions to draw an outline in my head, but it instantly fades out if I don't continuously re-draw it. Kind of like this: https://i.imgur.com/0zuPIPV.gifv https://i.imgur.com/0zuPIPV.gifv
- ekianjo 8y ago
  I have no issue conjuring clear images when closing eyes. I guess it depends how your brain is wired and this is probably why we have ways to refer people who are good at drawing, painting, etc. They probably have a mix of clear visualization and very good hand/finger coordination.
  - miguelrochefort 8y ago
    - Can you imagine the color of the floor, walls and ceiling at work? - Can you imagine the color of the eyes and hairs of your coworkers? - Can you imagine the home screen of your phone and see how many application icons can fit in a row and column? - Can you imagine Google's logo and see the color of each letter? - Can you imagine your car manufacturer's logo and draw it?
    - sidmani 8y ago
      1) I can do that easily, and even can imagine the paint texture for the walls. 2) Hair for all of them, but I can only picture the eyes of the people who had unusual colors (blue, gray, green). Maybe I never paid much attention if they had normal brown eyes. 3) Row yes, but I wasn't sure about the column (4 or 5). 4) Yes. 5) easiest task on the list.

westoncb 8y ago

I think what's maybe misleading here is that while there may be an accurate representation of a bicycle somewhere in someone's brain, that does not mean they're able to consciously access it and, e.g., recreate it through a task of complex motor coordination etc. (in order to produce a drawing, I mean). However, if you are using an fMRI, as in the paper, all you need is the accurate representation somewhere (and you need to know where that somewhere is of course). Another example: let's say you look at a picture of cheetah. Now you try to imagine it; what appears to you is a vague sort of resemblance but nowhere near as clear as when you were looking directly at it. But, just because the prompting for you to imagine the image didn't cause an accurate recreation in consciousness, doesn't mean it didn't occur elsewhere, perhaps at some earlier/lower-level stage of visual processing.

gamegoblin 8y ago
I don't think the "draw a bicycle" task involves complex motor coordination. It's drawing 2 circles and ~10 straight lines. Doesn't need to be photorealistic, just in the correct configuration. For example, I cannot visualize a 13-sided polygon accurately, but I can draw one pretty easily without having any drawing skills.
- westoncb 8y ago
  True. I hesitated to use that as an example because of the potential for confusion—but to clarify, I just meant that the motor skills are an example of another thing being involved beyond a clear representation somewhere, not that they are actually the limiting factor for reproducing the drawing. A more realistic problem in the case of the bicycle drawing has to do with the procedural knowledge they use for drawing. For instance, maybe they approach it analytically, top-down, breaking it into major components to draw first, and those into sub components. Well, in order to do that, they need explicit knowledge of that hierarchy; they may have an accurate representation of the image somewhere, but they can't bring it directly into consciousness, and they didn't break it into that hierarchy while they had it around. So now what's left to them is to attempt to produce the hierarchy from an imperfectly recalled image, which leads to the strange configurations. Just a guess—but I wouldn't be surprised to learn it's something on those lines.

docbrown 8y ago

Basing this on my rough memory of abnormal and developmental psych, the article and example you’re presenting is a type of Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rey%E2%80%93Osterrieth_complex_figure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rey%E2%80%93Osterrieth_complex...]. Some people may be able to produce a bicycle in more details than others but that depends on how developed and healthy their brain is to use their executive functions. Without knowing all of the subjects medical history—early dementia, strokes, all the good stuff- and current health, it’d come as no surprise that even consciously we cannot produce true representations of what we saw. Police sketches from eye witnesses may be a good thing to look at when thinking of producing images from memory. Some people have better brain health and are able to utilize many different high and low-level functions to produce more accurate descriptions. Others not so much.

zadler 8y ago
How does one improve brain health?
- docbrown 8y ago
  Harvard updated their Buzzfeedesque post on this topic [https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/12-ways-to-keep-your-brain-young https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/12-ways-to-keep...] which spans from crossword puzzles to avoiding alcohol. But to keep it simple: read, do puzzles, stay active, do not drink or do drugs heavily. —— Everybody already has a genetic makeup that limits their health—especially the brain—to a preset level. Some people suffer from infantile amnesia—basically not remembering early developmental stages (2-4) and preadolescent (~10 y/o); other’s claim to remember their birth (which is silly since ability to form memories is 2 y/o+). Some have the luxury of having strong working memory^1—a fancy word for temporary memories—but suffers from lackluster short-term memory. I’m sure you get the point I was trying to make with that mediocre explanation. tldr: You can not change your brain to not have dementia if your genetic makeup says so. You can however delay the onset possibly by keeping your brain active on a daily basis. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_memory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_memory

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]