Neuroscience of Imagination

Visual Mental Imagery (VMI) is perceptual processing in the absence of direct sensory input – a quintessentially human faculty. It is our “Mind’s Eye” - the faculty we use to relive our memories, enjoy a novel, create a painting, or predict whether our car will fit in a parking spot. As William Blake famously stated: “The imagination is not a state: it is the human existence itself”. In short, VMI simulates the content of perceptual experiences, perhaps by translating conceptual knowledge into a visual format. Nobody has yet provided a convincing theory as to how to explain the subjective nature of our mental lives in objective physical terms. In this seminar, we will get a detailed understanding of the underlying neural processes responsible for conscious processing and awareness - one of the hottest topics in contemporary neuroscience

 Discussion will be related of current issues in the scientific studies of mental imagery, particularly in the visual modality, including the search for the neural correlates of visual imagination, and the various kinds of impairments of VMI in clinical and non-clinical cases.

A crucial aspect of this seminar is to help students develop their ability to critically read and evaluate the latest published research in this field.

Prerequisites

Open to Ph.D. students in the Psychology department and graduate students in other related departments, with instructor’s permission. Open to advanced undergraduate students who have taken an introductory course in neuroscience or cognitive psychology (e.g., UN2430), with instructor’s permission