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Thenewdeal38
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Is it a collage of interacting nuerons and the cohesive accumulation of information? Or something else, don't tell me its dependent on quantum proporties?
Thenewdeal38 said:Is it a collage of interacting nuerons and the cohesive accumulation of information? Or something else, don't tell me its dependent on quantum proporties?
zoobyshoe said:In Musicophilia Oliver Sacks reports that brain imaging shows the same areas becoming active when imagining music as when actually listening to it. (This suggests, incidentally, that memory is a kind of degraded replay of the original experience.)
A quick google turned up a paper which comes to the same conclusion for visual imagining: when you are visually imagining, the same areas become active as are active when you're actually looking at real things:
http://web.mit.edu/bcs/nklab/media/pdfs/OCravenKanwisherJOCN00.pdf
(They reference a lot of other studies, so, apparently this is a question that is receiving a fair amount of attention.)
So, the answer to your question is that imaginary images are as logistically formed as actual perceptions.
atyy said:Interesting! They concentrate on extrastriate visual cortex - I wonder if they know what the result is for striate cortex?
zoobyshoe said:I do not know. I actually have no idea what "extrastriate" means.
atyy said:I was wondering if they didn't do striate cortex just because they knew the cut was above it?
Our study exploited the perceptual selectivity of two recently described extrastriate areas, and asked whether these areas exhibit a parallel selectivity during mental imagery. A region of ventral occipito-temporal cortex called the fusiform face area, or FFA (Kanwisher, McDer- mott, & Chun, 1997), responds strongly when subjects view photographs of faces, but only weakly when they view other classes of stimuli such as familiar objects or complex scenes (McCarthy, Puce, Gore, & Allison, 1997; Puce, Allison, Asgari, Gore, & McCarthy, 1996; Haxby et al., 1991, 1999). Conversely, a ventromedial cortical region called the parahippocampal place area (PPA) responds strongly to images of indoor and outdoor scenes depicting the layout of local space, but not at all to faces (Epstein & Kanwisher, 1998). These two regions provide an ideal arena for testing the selectivity of cortical activations during mental imagery because they exhibit opposite response properties: the optimal stimulus for the FFA is a very weak stimulus for the PPA and vice versa. Thus, we were able to look for a double dissociation of brain activity in response to imagery of two different classes of stimuli, instead of comparing imagery to nonimagery tasks as most previous studies have done.
zoobyshoe said:The choice of areas seems based on their known selective responsivness to either faces or place scenes, not on their "highness" or "lowness":
I would imagine, therefore, that the primary visual cortex (striate) is too responsive to too many stimuli to serve their purpose here.
The brain creates imaginary images through a complex process involving different regions of the brain. The visual cortex, which is responsible for processing visual information, plays a key role in creating and interpreting these images. It receives signals from the eyes and combines them with information from other parts of the brain, such as memory and emotions, to create a complete image.
Yes, with practice and training, it is possible for individuals to have some level of control over their imaginary images. For example, through visualization techniques, individuals can learn to manipulate and shape their imaginary images to reflect their desired thoughts or scenarios.
No, imaginary images are not the same as real images. While real images are based on external stimuli, imaginary images are created internally by the brain. They may be influenced by real experiences, but they are not exact replicas of those experiences.
Imaginary images are created by the brain as a response to internal thoughts or emotions, while hallucinations are perceived as real but have no basis in reality. Imaginary images are also under the control of the individual, whereas hallucinations can be persistent and uncontrollable.
Currently, brain imaging techniques cannot directly detect imaginary images. However, they can be used to observe the brain activity and patterns associated with imagining something. This can provide valuable insights into the neural processes involved in creating imaginary images.