Talk:Mental image

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Contents 1 Norman's work on design 2 NPOV: Anthropocentric 2.1 Merging "Mental Images" page 2.1.1 Mental Images 2.1.2 Merging 3 Philosophical Views 4 How mental images form in the brain.

[edit] Norman's work on design

I would agree Don Norman's work on design is more suited for a mental models wikipage than mental image. --Wikivangelist 06:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Added a section on experimental psychology and mental imagery in which I tried to pick up on the introspective and philosophical issues and show how the recent mental imagery evidence from congitive science has tried to address the philosophical issue(though I believe it has only pushed it back a bit). I also added a link to the mental rotation page, and created a mental imagery page that points both there and here. --Wikivangelist 06:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV: Anthropocentric

I tried to address this concern, albeit briefly, by changing "a defining characteristic of the human species" to "a central characteristic ..." Though we are still focused on the human aspects of mental images, perhaps by adding the section on psychology and mental imagery, which has strong historical connections in neuroscience to the neural motor images of the body that were first found in animals such as frogs, that will defuse this concern a bit... though I didn't want to work that data in since we were focused mostly on human experiments. Can we remove it now? or should we add a section toward the end on mental images in animals? I can draft one if there is demand. --Wikivangelist 06:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

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This article is anthropocentric and, thus, high-POV. It presumes, unempirically, that imagination is a biological capability unique to the brains of Homo sapiens. Ringbang 17:45, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I can't dispute that it is anthropocentric, but short of deleting the whole thing, how would you suggest it is changed?

The insight that other creatures --- dolphins, doigs, earthworms, bacteria, etc --- might have mental images too is not very interesting philosophically, because we can't -- so far -- communicate with them in order to find out.

Most of my ideas about this come from my philosophy degree from 20 years ago, and from reading Richard Dawkins, so I'm probably guilty as charged for being anthropocentric.

This was an early contribution of mine, -- I picked it up from a clean up request I think -- I'm not particularly proud of it, so if you think it should be changed or binned then go ahead.

all discussion welcome Thruston 19:14, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

was section Ok thanks for the input...

... but let's keep the original para (which is derived from Deutsch) as well and present both views.

Thruston 17:54, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Do people still think the page is NPOV due to anthropocentricity? If so, what edits need to be made? It seems to me that it's only the opening sentence, which is weak enough to deserve a rewrite regardless.

What research/writing has been done on mental imagery in animals? Plants? --Mgreenbe 11:59, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merging "Mental Images" page

Hello all? I'm not sure how active this page is. Anyway, I just found another page called Mental images, which I think needs to be merged. It refers (minimally) to computer vision also, which may link into the "non-human" issues.... Anyway, I'm not confident of the usefulness of the links they have. I may merge that as best I can (limited time). GregA 03:33, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

The Mental images page, in it's entirety, is:

[edit] Mental Images

Mental images are images as seen in the mind's eye, which CNN reporter Walter Rogers called the "camera in your mind". One complicating factor is the ambiguity of interpretation of an image. Computer vision pioneer David Marr produced a famous photograph of a woman's face, which includes an ambiguous feature that could be either her nose or her finger. Optical illusions regularly exploit this property.

See also: computer vision, machine vision, computer graphics.

[edit] Merging

I don't think this should be merged as a chunk, the individual thoughts should be mergeable

1. "The mind's eye" (philosophical/spiritual, 3rd eye
2. Ambiguity & Optical illusions
3. links to computer vision (currently without any real explanation)

(I see no added value in a CNN reporters ideas) GregA 04:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I've merged these together - though I'm not YET happy with the result. It seems that

• a computer vision section (and perhaps links to animal intelligence) could be separate.
• a "map vs reality" section is possible (interpretation vs reality). I've placed ambiguity with Freud's stuff on interpretation of reality but it's not quite right there. GregA 04:20, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Philosophical Views

I felt that the philosophical discussion was inaccurate. Berkeley was not a solipsist, he was an idealist. It is unfair to say that scientific realism is the most accurate worldview without discussing its problems. My later version accurately describes Berkeley's views and changes the scientism to a fairer account. posted by user Dazzling Darkness on 19:08, 1 December 2005 — please sign your posts with ~~~~

Thanks for your changes! Go ahead and be bold; you don't need to justify non-controversial changes. Welcome to Wikipedia! --Mgreenbe 12:04, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Reading this page it seems to me not to quite flow right... yet I've spent several hours playing with it and haven't yet found something that flows better (my work occassionally allows these distractions!).
Aside from the flow, general issues include:

1. Psychology is really about design and usability
2. The Psychiatry section can be expanded beyond Freud when considering that the mental images in our mind affect our behaviour
3. Philosophy seems a very general topic header... when we're really talking about philosophical discussions of "map vs territory", or "objective vs subjective reality"
4. I think there's room for mental images as they relate to learning - they're taught as part of "teaching", and there's some good research that mentally imagining doing a task has a great effect on learning that task.

If I can get it to flow I'll put up an alternative, keeping what's there but with a different arrangement, for whoever looks at this page to alter, improve, or revert (if revert, hopefully only partially!). Otherwise I've written up a section on learning, and updated usability. GregA 12:15, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How mental images form in the brain.

Have you ever wondered why you seem to get a mental picture of something happening when you are reading a book? Or maybe when you have a daydream? These images that one receives are like pictures in your head. For example, when a musician hears a song they can sometimes "see" the song notes in their head. This is different from an after image. For example, after-image from an event that is induced is considered not under our conscious control. By contrast, however, when we call up an image in our imagination or minds, it is considered to be voluntary. Therefore, we can characterize our imagery as being various degrees of our conscious control.

What is up with this paragraph? --Sillywalker 02:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC)