Imagining alchemy: visual and figurative representations in premodern sciences

This article examines visual and textual representation of blackness in contemporary black expressive culture. Its primary objective is to discern what blackness means and looks like when seen from the point of view of contemporary black expressive culture. To assess this, I first, briefly, analyze and interpret blackness. Second, I interrogate how contemporary black practitioners critique European ideas of blackness and mirror the complex multidimensionality of black subjecthood by conducting a formal analysis of two pieces of South African artist Zanele Muholi’s Somnyama Ngonyama – Hail the Dark Lioness series. Third, I explore the relationship between visual and textual imagery and their involvement in discourses on race. My intention is to reveal the role text and images play and have played in shaping the concept, perception, and representation of blackness; the visual effect they have had on the black imagination; and the heavy responsibility placed on black writers and artists not only to correct these images but to create images for the collective more often than for themselves.

Chapter 15 - “Borneo, Nature's Paradise”: Constructions and Representations of Nature within Nature-based Tourism

Comparing the Ability of Perceptual Simulation in Children with Developmental Dyslexia and Typical Children: An Embodied Cognition View

Does visual imagery engage some of the same representations used in visual perception? The evidence collected by cognitive psychologists in support of this claim has been challenged by three types of alternative explanation: Tacit knowledge, according to which subjects use nonvisual representations to simulate the use of visual representations during imagery tasks, guided by their tacit knowledge of their visual systems; experimenter expectancy, according to which the data implicating shared representations for imagery and perception is an artifact of experimenter expectancies; and nonvisual spatial representation, according to which imagery representations are partially similar to visual representations in the way they code spatial relations but are not visual representations. This article reviews previously overlooked neuropsychological evidence on the relation between imagery and perception, and discusses its relative immunity to the foregoing alternative explanations. This evidence includes electrophysiological and cerebral blood flow studies localizing brain activity during imagery to cortical visual areas, and parallels between the selective effects of brain damage on visual perception and imagery. Because these findings cannot be accounted for in the same way as traditional cognitive data using the alternative explanations listed earlier, they can play a decisive role in answering the title question.

This article focuses on an exhibition curated by library employees at the Pennsylvania State University. Their exhibition, Depth of Field, grew out of a common reading program collaboration. In creating the exhibition, the authors of this article aimed to create a dialogue around the way in which viewers interact with visual and textual imagery, specifically as it relates to war photography. Photojournalism is interdisciplinary and provided the authors with multiple avenues in which to approach themes, thus making it the perfect vehicle to cross boundaries and find common space for visitors to the exhibition. The intent of this article is to provide an example of a cross-campus collaboration that resulted in an engaging exhibition, how to take complex ideas and theories and make them digestible for a first-year student audience, and strategies for academic libraries who are considering a similar project at their institution.

The aims of this article are twofold: to present a new browser-based work called An Island of Sound, created by J. R. Carpenter with a soundscape by Jules Rawlinson, and to do so through a discussion of the collaborative process undertaken in creating a live performance of this work. This article is intended to be read in conjunction with the browser-based work, which can be found online at https://luckysoap.com/anislandofsound/. Artistically, An Island of Sound contributes a feminist, polyvocal, and decolonial approach to thinking about the emergence and propagation of phantom islands in the colonial imaginary. This thinking is undertaken through and with the elemental media of wind. All of the images in the browser-based work come from the British Library’s Flickr Commons. These visual elements extend far beyond the bounds of the browser window. In order to navigate the work, the viewer must scroll vertically and horizontally, and zoom in and out. Even then, the viewing is only ever partial. The textual elements in the browser-based work incorporate references to islands from classical, colonial, and cartographic sources. These texts are variable; one line of text on the screen may be a long poem in a JavaScript array in the source code. Thus, machine time enters into this assemblage, interrupting the timescale of human reading with its own logic of random selection and interruption. The sound-world created for the live performance of this work responds to, supports, and transforms the visual and textual imagery. Field recordings, wind synthesis, generative sample streams, and data-driven sound processing are collaged and combined with live spoken word to create ambiguous and shifting sonic narratives and spectral resonances. In keeping with the dialogic nature of this interdisciplinary and collaborative compositional process, this coauthored article retains the authors’ distinct voices and disciplinary frames of reference. In dialogue with the code languages underpinning the browser-based element of this work, these voices are differentiated by HTML-style tags: <JRC> for J. R. Carpenter and <JRA> for Jules Rawlinson. In dialogue with the temporal and sequential unfolding of the live performance, this article is written into the libretto devised for the live performance of the work. In taking this formal approach, this article contributes to expanding modes of criticism of literary works written in and with code languages. In doing so, it builds on two earlier examples: In 2013, Digital Humanities Quarterly published Nick Montfort and Stephanie Strickland’s “cut to fit the toolspun course,” an article written directly into an edition of the main JavaScript component of their browser-based work “Sea and Spar Between.” In 2016, an article written into the main HTML file of J. R. Carpenter’s browser-based work “There he was, gone.” was published in German translation in Code und Konzept: Literatur und das Digital. Poetic text from the libretto and images and source code from the browser-based iteration of An Island of Sound are incorporated within the body of this article in order to aid in the reading of these texts together. [Square brackets at the beginning of each section indicate notation on sound and visuals setting each scene.]

Effective learning in chemistry education requires students to understand visual representations across multiple conceptual levels. Essential to this process are visuospatial skills which enable students to interpret and manipulate these representations effectively. These abilities allow students to construct mental models that support problem solving and decision making, improving their understanding of complex concepts, for example chemical structures and reactions. The impact of individual differences in mental imagery, such as aphantasia and hyperphantasia, on chemistry students’ spatial thinking when engaging with visual representations is not well understood. This paper presents two exploratory studies that examine how the vividness of mental imagery is related to student outcomes in chemistry-related visuospatial problem solving. The first study quantitatively assessed the performance of first-year university students in tasks requiring complex visual and spatial reasoning within a chemistry context. The second study, involving the same participants, used qualitative interview data to investigate their cognitive strategies with a focus on how their mental imagery impacts their problem-solving approaches. Preliminary results suggest that the vividness of students’ visual mental imagery did not significantly impact their ability to spatially reason with visual representations in chemistry. Our findings also indicate that students with aphantasia may employ alternative strategies that mitigate their lack of visual mental imagery. This paper highlights the need for further research into the diversity of cognitive mechanisms employed by chemistry students of varying mental imagery capabilities.

Because motor imagery (MI) and visual imagery (VI) are influenced differently by factors such as biomechanical constraints or stimulus size, it is conceivable that they rely on separate processes, possibly involving distinct cortical networks, a view corroborated by neuroimaging and neuropsychological studies. In the posterior parietal cortex, it has been suggested that the superior parietal lobule (SPL) underlies VI, whereas MI relies on the supramarginalis gyrus (SMG). However, because several brain imaging studies have also shown an overlap of activations in SPL and SMG during VI or MI, the question arises as to which extent these 2 subregions really contribute to distinct imagery processes. To address this issue, we used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation to induce virtual lesions of either SMG or SPL in subjects performing a MI (hand drawing rotation) or a VI (letter rotation) task. Whatever hemisphere was stimulated, SMG lesions selectively altered MI, whereas SPL lesions only affected VI, demonstrating a double dissociation between MI and VI. Because these deficits were not influenced by the angular distance of the stimuli, we suggest that SMG and SPL are involved in the reenactment of the motor and visual representations, respectively, and not in mental rotation processes per se.

Visual and spatial mental imagery: Dissociable systems of representation

We were interested in the image. The latter, visual and figurative representation, has always been part of the means used in the teaching-learning of languages, we note that this support is always present in the language class, because in addition to its aspect of humor, the image is capable of explaining the linguistic code, by referring to another code. Thus, the image as a teaching aid could also have a considerable impact on the comprehension of writing among learners in the 7th and 8th years of basic education. This article is particularly interested in the teachers responsible for the information and communication technology course and the designers of programs and manuals. The main objective of the article is to give attention to this support likely to facilitate the teaching/learning of the French language. It first presents two types of images: a still image medium, namely a comic strip and an animated image medium, namely a video extract and scriptural and intercultural skills and Then, he focuses on to descriptive data taken from questionnaires intended for students concerning these aforementioned skills. The article also examines the relationships between the use of images in the teaching-learning process and the two skills.

Voluntary imagery is described as "weak perception" and is thought to be represented through activating the neurons corresponding to imagined features, that is, activation hypothesis. However, direct evidence for this hypothesis is lacking. Inspired by Pace et al. (2023), we examine an alternative suppression hypothesis, which states imagery involves suppression of neurons favoring nearby nonimagined features. While the activation hypothesis predicts a bell-shaped tuning curve of the neural representation for the imagined feature, the suppression hypothesis predicts a W-shaped tuning curve. To test these two hypotheses, we combined an imagery task with a discrimination task following the logic that different imagery-induced tuning curves would differently bias the perceived difference in the discrimination task. We probed the bias pattern by systematically manipulating the physical orientation difference and the discrimination-imagery relation condition. A series of psychophysical experiments were conducted. Results showed that after an imagery prior, bias pattern in the discrimination task followed the prediction of suppression hypothesis (Experiment 1a). By contrast, when substituting the imagery prior with a strong/weak perceptual prior, bias pattern was consistent with the prediction of activation hypothesis (Experiments 2a and 2b). Confounding effects of visual attention and perceptual imagery cue were excluded (Experiments 1b and 1c). We further constructed mathematical models and again validated our findings. In conclusion, behavioral and modeling results coherently suggested that the suppression hypothesis was a better explanation for imagery than the activation hypothesis. Our study challenges the traditional activation theory and provides novel empirical evidence for the suppressive representation of voluntary visual imagery. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Background: The immense potential of structural and functional reorganization of central nervous system i.e., neuro-plasticity following any injury serves the key mechanism behind the recovery of sensory-motor functions. One of the ways of enhancing this reorganization is through the technique of mental imagery. Mental imagery has been studied in various neurological conditions such as stroke and spinal cord injury (SCI) and has been seen to be quite effective in bringing about functional gains. But the research and literature available, particularly in SCI, is quite diverse and inconclusive. This review was, hence, conducted with the aim of understanding the concept of mental imagery and its therapeutic potential in spinal cord injury. Method: A systematic literature search, using PRISMA 2009 guidelines, was conducted according to the set inclusion and exclusion criteria. After the initial screening, 25 articles were finally selected for the review. These were independently reviewed by two reviewers. The articles selected included mixed designs (reviews, experimental studies and observational studies) and were published between 1990- September 2014. Results: The review revealed that the common techniques used to study mental imagery were mental chronometry, mental rotation and questionnaires. Apart from these, the vividness of imagery perceived during movement simulation were assessed using Movement Imagery Questionnaire (MIQ), MIQ-R (Revised), Kinesthetic and Visual Imagery Questionnaire (KVIQ), Vividness of Motor Imagery Questionnaire (VMIQ), Time Dependent Motor Imagery (TDMI) screening test etc. Two types of imagery perspectives were discussed about: external (a perspective that involves primarily a visual representation of motor task, i.e., third person); and internal (involves kinesthetic and visual representation from inside, i.e., first person of the simulated movements). Conclusion: The therapeutic benefits of mental imagery were mixed, with more weightage going towards motor recovery as compared to pain and other sensory areas. However, few questions still remained regarding the best methods of practice of mental imagery and the details of the techniques used with proper protocols.

Explicit Encoding of Multimodal Percepts by Single Neurons in the Human Brain

This study explored the relationship between Type A Behavior Pattern, visual imagery, and ability for time estimation. 115 subjects filled out a questionnaire which assessed them for the presence of a visual imaginary representation of time and scores on Type A or B behavior. While completing the questionnaire subject made estimates of four time intervals of 8 min., 22 sec. The treatment consisted of formal training in visual imagery representation between time estimates of intervals 3 and 4. Data were analyzed using a 2 x 2 x 4 mixed analysis of variance in which the subject variables (Type A/B, visual imaginary representation, and time (estimate) were dichotomized using median splits. The dependent measures were accuracy scores for each of the four estimation trials. Subjects with training in visual imagery representation estimated time accurately; Type A subjects with training in visual imaginary representation were the most accurate. All subjects improved over the four trials, with greatest improvement following training in visual imaginary representation. The most consistent improvement in time estimates occurred in Type A subjects. Results replicated and extended previous findings associating visual imaginary representations with more accurate time perception, especially for individuals scoring as showing Type A behavior pattern.

Individual differences shape the content of visual representations