What's the difference in your brain between seeing an object, thinking about that object, and visualizing an object?

Submitted by trey3rd t3_zg8jci in askscience

I tried to Google this, but must not have been using the right language to get any relevant seeming results.

To clarify let's take a small wooden cube as an example. I have one sitting at my desk, and obviously when I look at it, something in my brain activates. I can also close my eyes, and simply visualize the cube. Does that visualization use a different part of my brain compared to just seeing it? And further, I can simply think about the cube without visualizing it, is that another separate part of your brain that is doing that, or would it be related to the same parts that would handle visualizing, or actually seeing it?

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abd3fg t1_izio58b wrote

As far as I have read - pretty much the same brain regions are used when seeing and visualizing an object - source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0926641004000709

Whether you could think about the cube and not trigger visualizing it is questionable as far as I know. Anyways, there is no need to jump into conclusions yet, there is still a lot to learn about how the human mind works.

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trey3rd OP t1_izjlgld wrote

Replying to abd3fg (#892,418)

Interesting, thanks so much! I'm betting trying to get the relationship between all three of those was what was throwing off my searches. Appreciate ya!

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LCharteris t1_izk3ffs wrote

In his magisterial Principles of Psychology (1890), William James speculated that the same brain regions might be used both when looking at an object and when imagining it. That was confirmed by LeBihan and colleagues in 1986. They used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to track blood flow in the region of the brain known to be involved in the early processing of vision (the primary visual cortex, at the very back of the brain). When their subjects looked at a picture, there was increased blood flow (indicating increased brain activity) in the visual cortex (but not in a control area that was involved in vision). That was hardly surprising--it is the visual cortex, after all. But when they then asked their subjects to imagine the same picture there was a similar--though slightly weaker--activation of the same region. This showed that James was right--when we imagine a scene we use the same brain regions that are used in actual vision.

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zzharkk t1_izk8act wrote

You might enjoy Stephen Asma's "The Evolution of Imagination." It may not answer your question completely, but it would give you some insight. "Behave" by Robert Sapolsky, though a slightly different subject, might also help.

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chazwomaq t1_izkplro wrote

Some good answers here about the same cortical regions being active when perceiving and when imagining. Be aware though that this does not mean the whole pattern of activity is the same. For example, the optic nerves and thalamus are involved in sending visual information to the visual cortex. These would not be active when imagining.

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philosopherssage t1_izowxfq wrote

Another factor in recalled images is the person's place on the phantasia scale. With Aphantasia being "mind blind" they cannot visualize images or objects but instead typically deal with concepts, numbers, and/or words in relationships with objects. On the other end of the scale is hyperphantasia and the person has a very hard time with distinguishing between reality and what is their imagination.

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Aurora9279 t1_izztnth wrote

Replying to trey3rd (#893,759)

I'm late to the party but it's not completely clear as stated beforehand. There was a huge debate in the nineties about it, the so called imagery debate: Is imagery similar to our perception (symbolic approach) or amodal, more language like (propositional approach). The symbolic approach states that both perception and imagery use the same brain regions (e.g. visual cortex) and is part of the embodied cognition approach. The propositional approach instead states that they use different strategies and brain regions for imagery and perception.

I'm sorry that I can't write more, but if you're interested in googling, the most influential scientists were Kosslyn and Pylyshyn.

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