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Trends in Cognitive Sciences Feb 2010Dreams are a remarkable experiment in psychology and neuroscience, conducted every night in every sleeping person. They show that the human brain, disconnected from the... (Review)
Review
Dreams are a remarkable experiment in psychology and neuroscience, conducted every night in every sleeping person. They show that the human brain, disconnected from the environment, can generate an entire world of conscious experiences by itself. Content analysis and developmental studies have promoted understanding of dream phenomenology. In parallel, brain lesion studies, functional imaging and neurophysiology have advanced current knowledge of the neural basis of dreaming. It is now possible to start integrating these two strands of research to address fundamental questions that dreams pose for cognitive neuroscience: how conscious experiences in sleep relate to underlying brain activity; why the dreamer is largely disconnected from the environment; and whether dreaming is more closely related to mental imagery or to perception.
Topics: Brain; Consciousness; Dreams; Emotions; Environment; Humans; Imagination; Neurophysiology; Perception; Psychophysiology
PubMed: 20079677
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2009.12.001 -
Nature Reviews. Neuroscience Mar 2016The brain creates a model of the world around us. We can use this representation to perceive and comprehend what we see at any given moment, but also to vividly... (Review)
Review
The brain creates a model of the world around us. We can use this representation to perceive and comprehend what we see at any given moment, but also to vividly re-experience scenes from our past and imagine future (or even fanciful) scenarios. Recent work has shown that these cognitive functions--perception, imagination and recall of scenes and events--all engage the anterior hippocampus. In this Opinion article, we capitalize on new findings from functional neuroimaging to propose a model that links high-level cognitive functions to specific structures within the anterior hippocampus.
Topics: Animals; Hippocampus; Humans; Imagination; Memory, Episodic; Perception
PubMed: 26865022
DOI: 10.1038/nrn.2015.24 -
Trends in Cognitive Sciences Oct 2015Mental imagery research has weathered both disbelief of the phenomenon and inherent methodological limitations. Here we review recent behavioral, brain imaging, and... (Review)
Review
Mental imagery research has weathered both disbelief of the phenomenon and inherent methodological limitations. Here we review recent behavioral, brain imaging, and clinical research that has reshaped our understanding of mental imagery. Research supports the claim that visual mental imagery is a depictive internal representation that functions like a weak form of perception. Brain imaging work has demonstrated that neural representations of mental and perceptual images resemble one another as early as the primary visual cortex (V1). Activity patterns in V1 encode mental images and perceptual images via a common set of low-level depictive visual features. Recent translational and clinical research reveals the pivotal role that imagery plays in many mental disorders and suggests how clinicians can utilize imagery in treatment.
Topics: Brain; Humans; Imagination; Memory, Short-Term; Perception
PubMed: 26412097
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2015.08.003 -
Cortex; a Journal Devoted To the Study... Dec 2015
Topics: Humans; Imagery, Psychotherapy; Imagination; Surveys and Questionnaires; Task Performance and Analysis
PubMed: 26115582
DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2015.05.019 -
Science (New York, N.Y.) Nov 2023The hippocampus is critical for recollecting and imagining experiences. This is believed to involve voluntarily drawing from hippocampal memory representations of...
The hippocampus is critical for recollecting and imagining experiences. This is believed to involve voluntarily drawing from hippocampal memory representations of people, events, and places, including maplike representations of familiar environments. However, whether representations in such "cognitive maps" can be volitionally accessed is unknown. We developed a brain-machine interface to test whether rats can do so by controlling their hippocampal activity in a flexible, goal-directed, and model-based manner. We found that rats can efficiently navigate or direct objects to arbitrary goal locations within a virtual reality arena solely by activating and sustaining appropriate hippocampal representations of remote places. This provides insight into the mechanisms underlying episodic memory recall, mental simulation and planning, and imagination and opens up possibilities for high-level neural prosthetics that use hippocampal representations.
Topics: Animals; Rats; Brain-Computer Interfaces; Hippocampus; Imagination; Memory, Episodic; Mental Recall; Volition; Spatial Navigation; Brain Mapping
PubMed: 37917713
DOI: 10.1126/science.adh5206 -
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews.... Jul 2022Imagination is a cognitive process used to generate new ideas from old, not just in the service of creativity and fantasy, but also in our ordinary thoughts about... (Review)
Review
Imagination is a cognitive process used to generate new ideas from old, not just in the service of creativity and fantasy, but also in our ordinary thoughts about alternatives to current reality. In this article, I argue for the central function of imagination in the development of social cognition in infancy and childhood. In Section 1, I review a work showing that even in the first year of life, social cognition can be viewed through a nascent ability to imagine the physical possibilities and physical limits on action. In Section 2, I discuss how imagination of what should happen is appropriately constrained by what can happen, and how this influences children's moral evaluations. In the final section, I suggest developmental changes in imagination-especially the ability to imagine improbable events-may have implications for social inference, leading children to learn that inner motives can conflict. These examples point to a flexible and domain-general process that operates on knowledge to make social meaning. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Development and Aging Cognitive Biology > Cognitive Development Philosophy > Knowledge and Belief.
Topics: Child; Cognition; Creativity; Humans; Imagination; Learning; Social Cognition
PubMed: 35633075
DOI: 10.1002/wcs.1603 -
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Aug 2019Developmental cognitive neuroscience is flourishing but there are new challenges and new questions to be asked. I argue that we need a bigger picture and an evolutionary... (Review)
Review
Developmental cognitive neuroscience is flourishing but there are new challenges and new questions to be asked. I argue that we need a bigger picture and an evolutionary framework. This brings some challenges, such as the need to rewrite the old story of nature and nurture, and the need to systematically investigate innate predispositions. While brain imaging has provided some splendid insights and new puzzles to solve, its limitations must not be ignored. Can they help us to find out more about the extent to which the infant brain already configures the adult brain? Can we find out why neurodevelopmental disorders often have severe consequences on cognition and behaviour, despite the mitigating force of brain plasticity? I wish to encourage researchers of the future to take risks by letting their imagination inspire theories to pursue hard questions. I end with a wish list of topics, from start-up kits to abstract reasoning, that I hope can be tackled afresh. However, collecting physiological and behavioural data is not enough. We need a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of cognitive development.
Topics: Brain; Child Development; Cognition; Humans; Imagination; Infant; Neuronal Plasticity
PubMed: 31176283
DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2019.100669 -
Psychopathology 2020Anomalies of imagination are frequent and handicapping in schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) but neglected in psychopathology due to the lack of a conceptual... (Review)
Review
Anomalies of imagination are frequent and handicapping in schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) but neglected in psychopathology due to the lack of a conceptual framework to model disorders of imagination. Recently, the link between minimal self disorders and pathology of imagination has been emphasized. The aim of the present article is to discuss this initiative by stressing their paradigm drawing on the recent imaginary turn in phenomenological research. Although this field of research is currently very active in philosophy, there are very few translational approaches in psychopathology or cognitive sciences. In this paper, we examine how contemporary research concerning fantasy and imagination can lead to the elaboration of an epistemological and phenomenological framework for schizophrenia research. We first examine the psychopathological literature on anomalous fantasy and imagination in SSDs. Then we propose an exhaustive overview of the imaginary turn of philosophical phenomenology. Further, we examine the theoretical and practical implications of such a recasting of phenomenological research. We show how fantasy and imagination are involved in the embodiment process, and how identity and imagination are interlinked. Finally, we propose an overview of the possible implications for the understanding of psychotherapeutic processes and recovery strategies.
Topics: Humans; Imagination; Psychopathology; Schizophrenia
PubMed: 33059352
DOI: 10.1159/000509488 -
Microbes and Infection Feb 2017
Topics: Biomedical Research; Humans; Imagination; Molecular Biology; RNA
PubMed: 27876527
DOI: 10.1016/j.micinf.2016.11.002 -
Human Brain Mapping Nov 2016The astounding capacity for the human imagination to be engaged across a wide range of contexts is limitless and fundamental to our day-to-day experiences. Although... (Review)
Review
The astounding capacity for the human imagination to be engaged across a wide range of contexts is limitless and fundamental to our day-to-day experiences. Although processes of imagination are central to human psychological function, they rarely occupy center stage in academic discourse or empirical study within psychological and neuroscientific realms. The aim of this paper is to tackle this imbalance by drawing together the multitudinous facets of imagination within a common framework. The processes fall into one of five categories depending on whether they are characterized as involving perceptual/motor related mental imagery, intentionality or recollective processing, novel combinatorial or generative processing, exceptional phenomenology in the aesthetic response, or altered psychological states which range from commonplace to dysfunctional. These proposed categories are defined on the basis of theoretical ideas from philosophy as well as empirical evidence from neuroscience. By synthesizing the findings across these domains of imagination, this novel five-part or quinquepartite classification of the human imagination aids in systematizing, and thereby abets, our understanding of the workings and neural foundations of the human imagination. It would serve as a blueprint to direct further advances in the field of imagination while also promoting crosstalk with reference to stimulus-oriented facets of information processing. A biologically and ecologically valid psychology is one that seeks to explain fundamental aspects of human nature. Given the ubiquitous nature of the imaginative operations in our daily lives, there can be little doubt that these quintessential aspects of the mind should be central to the discussion. Hum Brain Mapp 37:4197-4211, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Topics: Brain; Humans; Imagination; Models, Psychological
PubMed: 27453527
DOI: 10.1002/hbm.23300