Unraveling the Mind’s Eye

"Man sees, he also talks."

This definition fits into the broader definition of the mind’s eye being a process by which one is able to build a mental image. Imagery has been defined in various ways in literature and psychology. Sometimes it is used to refer to picture words, metaphors, similes, and descriptive language generally. At other times it refers to the mental pictures that we experience when we imagine the appearance of familiar places and friends. It is even used in the sense of unconscious imagery - the visual memories and workings of visual imagination that are not actively before the “mind’s eye” but which move into view when required (Paivio 1983). Reisberg distinguishes between visual perception as meaning that image of an object achieved when and as it is seen and visual imagery as meaning the mental production of an image of an object in its absence, and spatial image as meaning the production of mental representation of an object by tactile means (Reisberg 1997, Gilbert 2005). Scientists have long speculated that the act of seeing things in our mind’s eye employs some of the same brain circuits that we use when seeing with our physical eyes. A number of brain scan studies have supported this view. When you look at a person up close, for example, a particular network of brain regions becomes active, including areas that process raw signals from your eyes as well as more sophisticated regions that recognize individual faces. When you close your eyes and conjure up a face, the parts of the brain that receive signals from the eyes are dormant, but the regions that recognize the features defining an individual again light up.

Unraveling the Mind’s Eye: Global Challenges, Innovation and Sustainability of Mankind aims to provide a platform where prominent scholars can share, discuss and develop their views and theories in the light of the most recent developments in the philosophical and scientific research on Imagination.