Not see it, no. I could describe it, from memory, if I had looked at it for long enough and paid enough attention (especially if I knew beforehand I’d have to describe it), but obviously I wouldn’t be seeing it. There’d be no image, just a memory.
I’m pretty certain the visual processing parts of the brain are not involved when I imagine or remember stuff.
I mean, there’s a lot of image processing going on in the retina and optic nerve (edge detection, contrast highlighting, and whatnot) that’s obviously not available when not using the eyes (which makes it very hard for me to imagine how this seeing images in your brain thing works), then a lot of spatial and temporal signal processing (motion detection, noise reduction, speed classification, and so on) in the thalamus, then there’s several layers of visual cortex doing the rest of the image processing, pattern recognition, and whatnot, and then there’s the rest of the brain (mainly prefrontal cortex and parietal and temporal lobes), which actually deals with that information, stores it, recalls it, and whatnot.
I imagine the whole retina-thalamus-visual cortex bit isn’t significantly involved in the way I “visualise” stuff, while it might be more involved for people who “see images” in their brains.
All the processed stuff (concepts, descriptions, dimensions, spatial and temporal relationships, and whatnot) is still there, though, just not the raw visual data (which would be superfluous in most cases anyway, unless I was trying to do something like recall a written page I hadn’t read in order to read it later, which I can’t do but you or someone with photographic memory might), so I’ve got everything I need anyway.
Damn, that’s wild. Kinda cool, though, that a remembered description is enough to be able to recognize things.
I can read a page I never read before, but there are times where the visual memory help fill in the gaps. When I read music and play it later I’ll do that, where I essentially read the music again, though I find that can actually be a little slow and limiting at times but it has its uses.
Not see it, no. I could describe it, from memory, if I had looked at it for long enough and paid enough attention (especially if I knew beforehand I’d have to describe it), but obviously I wouldn’t be seeing it. There’d be no image, just a memory.
I’m pretty certain the visual processing parts of the brain are not involved when I imagine or remember stuff.
I mean, there’s a lot of image processing going on in the retina and optic nerve (edge detection, contrast highlighting, and whatnot) that’s obviously not available when not using the eyes (which makes it very hard for me to imagine how this seeing images in your brain thing works), then a lot of spatial and temporal signal processing (motion detection, noise reduction, speed classification, and so on) in the thalamus, then there’s several layers of visual cortex doing the rest of the image processing, pattern recognition, and whatnot, and then there’s the rest of the brain (mainly prefrontal cortex and parietal and temporal lobes), which actually deals with that information, stores it, recalls it, and whatnot.
I imagine the whole retina-thalamus-visual cortex bit isn’t significantly involved in the way I “visualise” stuff, while it might be more involved for people who “see images” in their brains.
All the processed stuff (concepts, descriptions, dimensions, spatial and temporal relationships, and whatnot) is still there, though, just not the raw visual data (which would be superfluous in most cases anyway, unless I was trying to do something like recall a written page I hadn’t read in order to read it later, which I can’t do but you or someone with photographic memory might), so I’ve got everything I need anyway.
Damn, that’s wild. Kinda cool, though, that a remembered description is enough to be able to recognize things.
I can read a page I never read before, but there are times where the visual memory help fill in the gaps. When I read music and play it later I’ll do that, where I essentially read the music again, though I find that can actually be a little slow and limiting at times but it has its uses.