Visual Imagination Research Articles

Introduction: Romanticism and Vision

ABSTRACT This special issue foregrounds new scholarship on Romanticism and vision. From its origins as a keyword for the visionary imagination, “vision” has in recent decades become an important lens for thinking about the embodied sense of sight and the aims and objectives of looking. The essays collected here contribute to the current work of reassessing Romantic approaches to and concerns over vision by exploring the tension between word and image, shifting paradigms in the theatrical and visual arts, and the social and political stakes of viewing, from the formation of the gaze, to sympathetic viewership, to the construction of bodily and racial difference.

Emotional Intelligence Not Only Can Make Us Feel Negative, but Can Provide Cognitive Resources to Regulate It Effectively: An fMRI Study.

Neuroscientists have formulated the model of emotional intelligence (EI) based on brain imaging findings of individual differences in EI. The main objective of our study was to operationalize the advantage of high EI individuals in emotional information processing and regulation both at behavioral and neural levels of investigation. We used a self-report measure and a cognitive reappraisal task to demonstrate the role of EI in emotional perception and regulation. Participants saw pictures with negative or neutral captions and shifted (reappraised) from negative context to neutral while we registered brain activation. Behavioral results showed that higher EI participants reported more unpleasant emotions. The Utilization of emotions scores negatively correlated with the valence ratings and the subjective difficulty of reappraisal. In the negative condition, we found activation in hippocampus (HC), parahippocampal gyrus, cingulate cortex, insula and superior temporal lobe. In the neutral context, we found elevated activation in vision-related areas and HC. During reappraisal (negative-neutral) condition, we found activation in the medial frontal gyrus, temporal areas, vision-related regions and in cingulate gyrus. We conclude that higher EI is associated with intensive affective experiences even if emotions are unpleasant. Strong skills in utilizing emotions enable one not to repress negative feelings but to use them as source of information. High EI individuals use effective cognitive processes such as directing attention to relevant details; have advantages in allocation of cognitive resources, in conceptualization of emotional scenes and in building emotional memories; they use visual cues, imagination and executive functions to regulate negative emotions effectively.

Unfinished Poetry

Unfinished Poetry

Concepts and Principles of Contemporary Hypno-Psychotherapy

Hypnosis is empirically well studied in its biological foundations and its therapeutic effectiveness. It is a recognised healing method in Austria, Switzerland and Germany. With the use of imaging techniques, it can be clearly shown that brain areas responsible for attention, visual imagination, critical evaluation and self-awareness change in their activity through hypnosis in such a way that the state of hypnotic trance differs markedly from both sleep and waking consciousness. The effects of hypnosis on the immune system as well as on affects have been confirmed. Basically, a fundamental distinction must be made between “therapeutic hypnosis”, hypnosis for therapeutic purposes, and “show hypnosis”, such as is shown in various entertainment performances. Therapeutic hypnosis” is in turn divided into different forms, namely “hypnotic psychotherapy”, “hypnotherapy” and “hypnosis”.

Robot Assisted Treatment of Hand Functional Rehabilitation Based on Visual Motor Imagination.

This pilot study implements a hybrid brain computer interface paradigm based on motor imagery (MI) and steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP), in order to explore the neural mechanism and clinical effect of MI-SSVEP intervention paradigm on upper limb functional rehabilitation. In this study, EEG data of 12 healthy participants were collected, and the activation regions of MI-SSVEP paradigm were identified by power spectral density (PSD). By analyzing the inter trial phase consistency (ITPC) of characteristic regions and the causal relationship of brain network, the motor cognitive process including high-level somatosensory joint cortex in the intervention process of MI-SSVEP was studied. Subsequently, this study verified the clinical effect of MI-SSVEP intervention paradigm for 61 stroke patients. The results show that the robot assisted therapy using MI-SSVEP intervention paradigm can more effectively improve the rehabilitation effect of patients.

Global Englishes and the Semiotics of German Radio—Encouraging the Listener's Visual Imagination Through Translingual and Transmodal Practices

Due to increasing mediatisation of societies and the global diffusion of English, previous research has paid a great deal of attention to the use of English in contact with other linguistic resources. Traditionally, the focus in studies on global Englishes is predominantly on verbal resources, which are often examined in media corpora. The recent paradigmatic shift towards a conceptualisation of language as a social practice, however, also acknowledges other resources such as music, images and sounds as part of semiotic assemblages in the process of meaning-making. This paper contributes to this current debate and argues for a more holistic view on language illustrated by examples of the use of global Englishes in German radio media texts. The examples show the complexities of translingual and transmodal practices in mass media communication and how English linguistic resources are deeply entangled with other semiotic resources and thereby locally appropriated in semiotic assemblages to stimulate the listener's visual imagination and achieve communicative success in a non-visual medium.

A Cognitive Model of Reading Autofiction

ABSTRACT Autofiction is a genre in which the author appears as a character, the nonfiction of their autobiographical life combining with the fiction of invention and fabrication. Critical discussions of autofiction are dominated by arguments concerning its dual narrative structure evoking a duet of imaginative visions which, in turn, requires reading strategies that shift between fact and fiction. These critical intuitions are perceptive, yet they remain unfounded since they make claims about reading and interpretation that can only be explained by recourse to cognitive frameworks and substantiated by empirical research. To rectify this, I propose a cognitive model of the processes involved in reading autofiction, combining the storyworld, Text World Theory, conceptual blending, and the person model. My cognitive model includes two new concepts: the “author model” and “ontological dissonance”. Analysis of Michelle Tea’s autofiction Black Wave alongside reader responses tests my proposed model and ultimately validates it.

Active versus Passive Strategy in Online Creativity Training: How to Best Promote Creativity of Students with Different Cognitive Styles?

While online education has become a new trend for knowledge acquisition and skill development, empirical studies on the effectiveness of online creativity training are scarce and the findings are inconclusive. In the current study, we investigated whether individual differences in cognitive style (i.e., FD-field dependence, FI-field independence) influence learners’ performance in online creativity training. The literature suggests that when processing information, FD learners tend to prefer inductive learning and rely on external references while the FI learners are more likely to prefer deductive learning and rely on internal reference. A three-day online training was developed and delivered to participants via either the active or the passive training strategy. This study was a pre-posttest between-subjects design, and three creativity tasks (AUT-alternative uses task, visual imagination task, and the design problem) were used to measure participants’ creative performance. The MANOVA results showed a significant interaction effects that FD participants greatly improved on performance of the AUT and the design problem after exposing to the active training compared to the passive training, whereas the FI participants did not show improvement. Besides, the FD participants reported positive training experiences (preference and motivation) on the active training strategy while the FI participants didn't seem to differ in their experiences of different training strategies. The current findings implicate that instructor and teachers should be aware of the individual differences while designing creativity training materials/courses in digital as well as real-life contexts.

Women and Photography in Africa: Creative Practices and Feminist Challenges

Women and Photography in Africa: Creative Practices and Feminist Challenges

Reimagining Imagia. Neurocognitive Theory of Image Revisited With the Consciousness Studies Perspective

Imagia. Towards a neurocognitive theory of image (Francuz, 2013) defines art perception as a synthesis between acts of perception and visual imagination limited by attentional constraints. The majority of empirical evidence the author referred to in the book focuses on visual processing, attention, and aesthetic judgements. Nevertheless, other mechanisms involved in the subjective experience formation undoubtedly also plays a role in the perception of art. Thus, it seems worth complementing the fundaments of the neurocognitive theory of image with consciousness literature. The research in this domain often reminds us that we see much more than is presented. Our conscious perception is modified, extended, and enriched due to multiple mechanisms, such as prediction, integration, or learning. Here, I review selected examples of work from the consciousness literature to illustrate this claim. Furthermore, I discuss this work in the context of art perception. Finally, I reconstruct the model proposed by Francuz and offer its extension that accounts for the aspects covered by the original work and those addressed in this paper.

No Time Like the Present: The Ambiguous Aesthetics of Nadine Gordimer’s Late Style

For over 60 years, Nadine Gordimer has chronicled South Africa’s changing political climate. Her final novel, No Time Like the Present (2012), has therefore been received primarily as fictionalised historiography that traces and reflects on the woes and the accomplishments of the young democracy. However, so far, this narrow emphasis on historical reality has led to the neglect of the imaginative vision of the novel. I would like, instead, to pursue two contrastive readings. In ‘Writing Back,’ I will read the novel as political chronicle and lay out to what degree it advocates historical contingency. In reflecting on the ‘present’ as perennially troubled by former apartheid policy, it provides insight into the specific historical period of the first decade of the new millennium. In ‘Reading Forward,’ I will shift the focus to Gordimer’s aesthetics, in particular her language, style and character conceptualisation to align Gordimer’s political project with her aesthetic one, ultimately allowing for form and content to be framed as one intricate coherent whole.

Is Presence Perceptual?

Perceptual experience and visual imagination both offer a first-person perspective on visible objects. But these perspectives are strikingly different. For it is distinctive of ordinary perceptual intentionality that objects seem to be present to the perceiver. I term this phenomenal property of experience ‘presence’. This paper introduces a positive definition of presence. Dokic and Martin (2017) argue that presence is not a genuine property of perceptual experience, appealing to empirical research on derealisation disorders, Parkinson’s disease, virtual reality and hallucination. I demonstrate that their arguments fall short of establishing that presence is not perceptual.

Apocalyptic Visions and Anthems of Hope: Climate Change Communication and Future Possibilities

Abstract Within the emerging field of evolutionary psychology a consensus is developing that the triggering of emotions is integral to the human response to threats. This understanding of human psychology underlies a vigorous debate within the contemporary activity of climate change communication regarding the efficacy of the emotions of fear vis-à-vis hope for mobilising human behavioural change. Noting the contours of this debate and the paucity of radical future vision casting within contemporary western political discourse, the article examines how images of terror function within the ‘Little Apocalypse’ passage in Matthew 24 and potential insights this offers to our contemporary situation. Building upon this biblical reflection, the article contends that the Christian practices of preaching and singing have significant power to shape communal imaginative visions of alternative futures. As such, these practices are critical gifts that the church can offer the environmental movement and broader society in this moment of time.

Touring the Screen: Cinematic Resonances of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes

Touring the Screen: Cinematic Resonances of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes

A novel strategy for driving car brain-computer interfaces: Discrimination of EEG-based visual-motor imagery.

A brain–computer interface (BCI) based on kinesthetic motor imagery has a potential of becoming a groundbreaking technology in a clinical setting. However, few studies focus on a visual-motor imagery (VMI) paradigm driving BCI. The VMI-BCI feature extraction methods are yet to be explored in depth. In this study, a novel VMI-BCI paradigm is proposed to execute four VMI tasks: imagining a car moving forward, reversing, turning left, and turning right. These mental strategies can naturally control a car or robot to move forward, backward, left, and right. Electroencephalogram (EEG) data from 25 subjects were collected. After the raw EEG signal baseline was corrected, the alpha band was extracted using bandpass filtering. The artifacts were removed by independent component analysis. Then, the EEG average instantaneous energy induced by VMI (VMI-EEG) was calculated using the Hilbert–Huang transform (HHT). The autoregressive model was extracted to construct a 12-dimensional feature vector to a support vector machine suitable for small sample classification. This was classified into two-class tasks: visual imagination of driving the car forward versus reversing, driving forward versus turning left, driving forward versus turning right, reversing versus turning left, reversing versus turning right, and turning left versus turning right. The results showed that the average classification accuracy of these two-class tasks was 62.68 ± 5.08%, and the highest classification accuracy was 73.66 ± 6.80%. The study showed that EEG features of O1 and O2 electrodes in the occipital region extracted by HHT were separable for these VMI tasks.

Evaluating science curriculum content standards according to the visual thinking skills of basic education stage pupils: تقييم معايير محتوى منهاج العلوم وفق مهارات التفكير البصري لدى تلاميذ مرحلة التعليم الأساسي

The aim of the research is to define the degree to which visual thinking skills are achieved in the science curriculum among students of the basic education stage (grades two and six). To achieve the goal, the researcher used a list of visual thinking skills especially for the sixth grade textbook consisting of 30 criteria distributed on 7 axes (skills) A list of visual thinking skills for the second grade book, consisting of 34 criteria distributed into 7 axes (skills) for the sixth grade book, consisting of 30 criteria distributed into 7 axes (skills). The results of the research concluded that the skills are available in the second and sixth grades as follows: The visual discernment skill was of medium rank 1, visual proficiency 2 was also moderate, visual translation skill 3 moderate, visual contemplation 4 moderate, visual observation skill 5 weak, visual imagination 6 poor, and visual closure 7 poor. In light of the search results, we recommend the following: 1- Attention by the curriculum authors to the skills of visual thinking by conducting full-fledged teaching courses for these skills. 2- Educating science teachers about visual thinking skills, and holding training courses in employing visual thinking skills in science classes, in a way that serves the achievement of national standards for education in Syria.

Melville's Quixoticism and the Modern World-System

Melville's Quixoticism and the Modern World-System

What Does #Freedom Look Like? Instagram and the Visual Imagination of Values

AbstractInstagram is the place for the visualization of everything, from travel and food to abstract concepts such as freedom. Over the past decade, the platform has introduced a bottom-up process where users co-produce image repertoires that shape the boundaries of the imaginable. Drawing on an epistemology of social constructionism, we ask which visual repertoires are associated with value-related terms on Instagram. We studied 20 widely used value hashtags, sampling the top 100 posts for each (N = 2,000). A combined qualitative–quantitative content analysis revealed that 19 of the 20 hashtags possess distinct visual footprints, typically reflecting an orientation toward the self and an emphasis on consumption. We conclude by discussing three implications of our findings: the role of images in the social construction of the meaning of values, the distinction between internalized and externalized value depictions, and aestheticized consumption as an organizing principle of Instagram’s mainstream.

Odors Associated With Autobiographical Memory Induce Visual Imagination of Emotional Scenes as Well as Orbitofrontal-Fusiform Activation.

Specific odors can induce memories of the past, especially those associated with autobiographical and episodic memory. Odors associated with autobiographical memories have been found to elicit stronger activation in the orbitofrontal cortex, hippocampus, and parahippocampus compared with odors not linked to personal memories. Here, we examined whether continuous odor stimuli associated with autobiographical memories could activate the above olfactory areas in older adults and speculated regarding whether this odor stimulation could have a protective effect against age-related cognitive decline. Specifically, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the relationship between blood oxygen levels in olfactory regions and odor-induced subjective memory retrieval and emotions associated with autobiographical memory in older adults. In our group of healthy older adults, the tested odors induced autobiographical memories that were accompanied by increasing levels of retrieval and the feeling of being “brought back in time.” The strength of the subjective feelings, including vividness of the memory and degree of comfort, impacted activation of the left fusiform gyrus and left posterior orbitofrontal cortex. Further, our path model suggested that the strength of memory retrieval and of the emotions induced by odor-evoked autobiographical memories directly influenced neural changes in the left fusiform gyrus, and impacted left posterior orbitofrontal cortex activation through the left fusiform response.

Visual imagination and cognitive mapping of a virtual building.

We investigated the contribution of visual imagination to the cognitive mapping of a building when initial exploration was simulated either visually by using a passive video walk-through, or mentally by using verbal guidance. Building layout had repeating elements with either rotational or mirror symmetry. Cognitive mapping of the virtual building, determined using questionnaires and map drawings, was present following verbal guidance but inferior to that following video guidance. Mapping was not affected by the building's structural symmetry. However, notably, it correlated with small-scale mental rotation scores for both video and verbal guidance conditions. There was no difference between males and females. A common factor that may have influenced cognitive mapping was the availability of visual information about the relationships of the building elements, either directly perceived (during the video walk-through) or imagined (during the verbal walk-through and/or during recall). Differences in visual imagination, particularly mental rotation, may thus account for some of the individual variance in cognitive mapping of complex built environments, which is relevant to how designers provide navigation-relevant information.