
Our Visual Imagination Is Severely Limited - QAPereo
https://undark.org/article/visual-imagination-brain-implications/
======
walterbell
Magic Leap is relying on our visual imagination,
[https://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/features/lightwear-
intro...](https://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/features/lightwear-introducing-
magic-leaps-mixed-reality-goggles-w514479)

 _" The current thinking is that about 40 percent of your neurological power
is being used for visual processing ... the visual cortex functions a lot like
a graphics processor in a computer. It takes the information fed to it by the
eyes and renders a world for the person to perceive. And that it only really
needs to be fed a very sparse amount of data to do that. “Maybe we all have
genetically passed on versions of the world and all we do is intake sparse
change data to update that model, but we have a persistent model ...
Everything you think is outside of you is completely rendered internally by
you, co-created by you plus the analog light field signal ... The world you
are living in, you are creating constantly"_

~~~
s_gourichon
Reminds me of this:

> According to neuroscientist Anil Seth, we're all hallucinating all the time;
> when we agree about our hallucinations, we call it "reality."

[(8) Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality | Anil Seth -
YouTube]([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyu7v7nWzfo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyu7v7nWzfo))

------
SubiculumCode
Very nice article. It is so refreshing when someone who really knows what they
are talking about writes in the popular science writing style. As a post-doc
in a related field of cog neuroscience, I give the article my thumbs up.

~~~
phkahler
I'd like to reconcile this with the fact that some people can solve a rubik's
cube blindfolded after having a good look at it. It seems like they have the
ability to imagine the relative movements of 26 objects at once.

~~~
shmageggy
It is well known that while everyone has roughly the same capacity of visual
working memory, expertise in an area drastically alters our efficiency in
utilizing that memory. For example, chess masters are much better than novices
at recalling chess positions when they look like typical middle-game
positions, but they perform nearly the same as novices on random arrangements
of pieces [1]. In the rubik's cube case, the expert is not memorizing 54
individual squares, but rather they are taking advantage of learned patterns
to store fewer, larger chunks.

For another example, consider memorizing strings of letters: Which one do you
find easier? GKAMIFTBW or IBMFBICIA

[1] Chase, W. G., & Simon, H. A. (1973). Perception in chess. Cognitive
psychology, 4(1), 55-81.

~~~
placebo
Would Stephen Wiltshire's talent be attributed to the same explanations ?

[http://www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/](http://www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/)

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223790/Autistic-
art...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223790/Autistic-artist-
draws-18ft-picture-New-York-skyline-memory.html)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsJbApZ5GF0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsJbApZ5GF0)

~~~
shmageggy
Great question and I have no idea. My comment was geared toward those with
normal function (should have specified). There is a large literature on memory
and austism/savantism, but I'm familiar with none of it. However, my guess
would be that the current best answer is as it is with nearly all of autism --
we don't know.

------
TheAceOfHearts
Kinda tangential, but after living alone for a few years I've updated my
selection criteria for furniture to prioritize cleaning difficulty and comfort
over visual style. Given its nature, industrial-style furniture is usually
easier to clean and it's made from tough material capable of handling a wider
range of cleaning chemicals.

I wonder what the outcome would be for a person with autism. I remember
watching a video of a psychologist explaining that normal people are better at
abstracting visual concepts, and used a drawing of a house as an example. Most
people would likely draw the traditional pentagon house with chimney, but a
person with autism would need to draw a specific house.

Don't we improve on this by leveraging tools? e.g. paper and pen, computers,
etc. I don't have to imagine a large number of visualizations all at once, I
can just draw a mockup and reference it when needed. That lets you group
everything up into a conceptual black box, instead of tracking it all in your
head.

In the case of treating phobias, can't we leverage photos and video? From an
uneducated perspective, it would seem like a reasonable middle ground.

~~~
aero-002
What do you mean by leveraging photos and videos to treat phobias? Sounds
interesting

~~~
TheAceOfHearts
Well, in the article they mention that you need to physically confront the
phobia in order to overcome it, or confront it by a method which incorporates
your visual imagination. But that seems to me like it kinda skips over the
possibility of using photos or video to become more comfortable.

    
    
      The mentioned alternative would be to use your visual imagination. However,

------
kordlessagain
Last year at CoreOS Fest I spoke to a gentleman from Google who said they
think limiting Tensorflow nodes processing power and/or trimming out some
nodes entirely appears to cause the entire model to become more robust and
perform better by spreading certain attributes (like edge detection) across
multiple nodes. A type of holistic training, if you will. I see correlation
with a limitation on visualizations.

Regarding this particular article, members of this research group at New South
Wales and related studies have been making a variety of claims regarding
visualization over the past few years, including what appear to be loaded
comments about Aphantasia.

These comments include:

 _“It’s a lack of the mind’s eye. My hunch is that there is something a bit
different about their brains and that there may be a genetic component.” —
Adam Zeman, University of Exeter_

 _“If there’s too much activity and noise, it’s like sketching on a dirty
piece of paper: it’s hard to see the drawing.” — Joel Pearson, University of
New South Wales_

 _“It could also alter moral judgement.” — Alice Klein, reporter for New
Scientist while relating comments by Joel Pearson._

I would present a counter argument that our visual imaginations are not
something to be considered "severely limited". Instead, our imaginations are
something that _may be limited_ , either by intent (see Zen) or by
circumstances (non-visualizer). If someone happens to be a great visualizer,
then good for them, but don't tell me I'm limited. ;)

Judging it to be something we lack and thus need more of is questionable.
Perhaps the desired outcome is to have less of it, rather than more.

------
hypertexthero
> The will of action is always dualistic. Is it possible to go beyond this
> will which is separative and discover a state in which this dualistic action
> is not? That can only be found when we directly experience the state in
> which the thinker is the thought. We now think the thought is separate from
> the thinker; but is that so? We would like to think it is, because then the
> thinker can explain matters through his thought. The effort of the thinker
> is to become more or become less; and therefore, in that struggle, in that
> action of the will, in 'becoming', there is always the deteriorating factor;
> we are pursuing a false process and not a true process.

> Is there a division between the thinker and the thought? So long as they are
> separate, divided, our effort is wasted; we are pursuing a false process
> which is destructive and which is the deteriorating factor. We think the
> thinker is separate from his thought. When I find that I am greedy,
> possessive, brutal, I think I should not be all this. The thinker then tries
> to alter his thoughts and therefore effort is made to 'become; in that
> process of effort he pursues the false illusion that there are two separate
> processes, whereas there is only one process. I think therein lies the
> fundamental factor of deterioration.

> Is it possible to experience that state when there is only one entity and
> not two separate processes, the experiencer and the experience? Then perhaps
> we shall find out what it is to be creative, and what the state is in which
> there is no deterioration at any time, in whatever relationship man may be.

—Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom, Chapter 15, The Thinker and
The Thought

------
millisecond
Several of these recent studies read like the brain has specs, like a fancy
GPU.

Scary thought but I guess at some level it had to be true.

~~~
stevemk14ebr
Why should Discovery of these "specs" be scary? I find it fascinating, by know
the limitations of myself I can actively choose to think in ways that I am
more likely to be good at. I can use that new active process of thinking to
help me, for example, design software that is easier to reason about.

~~~
1000units
Some people are afraid of the truth. Many questions people don't like the
answer to.

