ABSTRACTS
Bill Faw
Conflicting Intuitions May Be Based On Differing Abilities Evidence from
Mental Imaging Research
Abstract: Much of the current imaging literature either denies the existence
of wakeful non-mental imagers, views non-imagers motivationally as ‘repressors’
or ‘neurotic’, or acknowledges them but does not fully incorporate them
into their models. Neurobiologists testing for imaging loss seem to assume
that visual recognition, describing objects, and free-hand drawing require
the forming of conscious images. The intuition that ‘the psyche never thinks
without an image.... the reasoning mind thinks its ideas in the form of
images’ (Aristotle) has a long tradition in philosophical psychology, from
Aristotle through the British empiricists to the British-empiricist-inspired
introspection paradigm of Titchener. The massive shift in early experimental
psychology to the introspective-antagonistic paradigm of Watson’s behaviourism,
may have sprung from the contrary intuition that no one thinks in mental
images. In both cases, people seemed to assume that what is in one’s own
mind is in everybody‘s mind. A third, mediating, intuition – that some
people do not think with conscious mental imagery — seems to be confirmed
by empirical studies on many levels. From the early imagery interviews
of Francis Galton through many modern surveys, including my own, a consistent
diversity of self-reports on ones own mental imagery abilities suggests
that some 2-5% of people are very poor- or non-visual-imagers who, yet,
maintain normal visual recognition abilities. Comparable estimates have
been made in auditory and other imagery modalities. In addition to them,
there is a variety of non-normal clinical non- imagers, who have partially
or completely lost their imaging abilities due to strokes or head trauma.
Some of these become essentially like natural non-imagers, but more of
them suffer corresponding perceptual and sensory-memory loss. A few even
show perceptual losses without imaging losses. This suggests that those
who have normal perceptual and approximately-normal memorial abilities
but claim not to be able to form mental images might have some sort of
subliminal imaging ability that allows normal perception but not conscious
supraliminal imaging.
Correspondence: Professor Bill Faw, Brewton Parker College, Mount
Vernon, Georgia, USA. Email: bfaw@bpc.edu
Vittorio Gallese
The Two Sides of Mimesis: Girard’s Mimetic Theory, Embodied Simulation
and Social Identification
Abstract: Crucial in Girard’s Mimetic Theory is the notion of mimetic desire,
viewed as appropriative mimicry, the main source of aggressiveness and
violence characterizing our species. The intrinsic value of the objects
of our desire is not as relevant as the fact that the very same objects
are the targets of others’ desire. One could in principle object against
such apparently negative and one-sided view of mankind, in general, and
of mimesis, in particular. However, such argument would misrepresent Girard’s
thought. Girard himself acknowledged that mimetic desire is also good in
itself, because is at the basis of love, and even more importantly because
it’s the opening out of oneself. Starting from the notion of desire as
openness to others I will discuss from a neuroscientific perspective the
implications for social cognition of mimesis against the background of
Girard’s Mimetic Theory, an ideal starting framework to foster a multidisciplinary
approach to the study of human intersubjectivity. It will be posited that
a different, not mutually exclusive, account of mimesis leads to social
identification henceforth to sociality. Mimesis is neither good or bad,
but has the potentials to lead not only to mimetic violence but also to
the most creative aspects of human cognition. Results of empirical research
in neuroscience and developmental psychology show that such account of
mimesis finds solid supporting evidence. It will be concluded that a thorough
and biologically plausible account of human intersubjectivity requires
the integration of both sides of mimesis.
Correspondence: Vittorio Gallese, Dipartimento di Neuroscienze — Sezione
di Fisiologia, Università di Parma, Via Volturno 39, 43100 Parma,
Italy. Email: vittorio.gallese@unipr.it
Stephen Grant
Feelings Are Not Enough
Abstract: This article addresses whether contemporary feeling theories
of the emotions can overcome the problems generally associated with such
theories. Specifically, it considers whether they can explain the normative
assessment of the emotions, their availability for introspective identification,
and their intentionality. The article looks primarily at the work of Jesse
Prinz, and suggests that his responses to these problems fall short as
a result of a flawed account of the intentional nature of emotions. I conclude
with brief comments on how theories which include intentional states such
as judgements within the ontology of emotion overcome the problems which
are identified.
Correspondence: Dr Stephen Grant, Dept of Philosophy, Richmond upon
Thames College, London TW2 7SJ, UK. Email: stephen.grant@rutc.ac.uk
Danay C. Novoa and Harry T. Hunt
Synaesthesias in Context: A Preliminary Study of the Adult Recall of Childhood
Synaesthesias, Imaginary Companions, and Altered States of Consciousness
as Forms of Imaginative Absorption
Abstract: Participants recruited for high levels of imaginative absorption
were administered a questionnaire based on Calkins’ (1892, 1895) original
study that first established a wide continuum of childhood synaesthesias
and synaesthetic associations, along with separate questionnaires assessing
childhood imaginary companions, positive altered states of consciousness
(lucid and archetypal forms of dreaming, mystical experiences) and negative
states of nightmares and night terrors. Their inter-relation and relation
to measures of adult imaginative absorption helps to establish these states
as aspects of an underlying imagistic dimension, while their relative differentiation
is explored through different forms of adult absorption, early stressors
from childhood, and degree of parental support for creative activities.
The connection of this wider continuum of adult recalled childhood synasesthesias,
imaginary companions, and altered states of consciousness to adult imaginative
absorption is consistent with recent neuro-imaging synaesthetic research
supporting its relation to symbolic cognition, metaphor, and creativity.
Correspondence: Harry T. Hunt, Department of Psychology, Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1. Email: hhunt@brocku.ca
John Smythies
‘Reality’ and ‘Virtual Reality’ Mechanisms in the Brain and their Significance
Abstract: This paper presents the results of some recent experiments in
neuroscience and introspectionist psychology that reveal the role of virtual
reality in normal visual perception, and the use of television information
compression technology by the visual brain. This involves particularly
the cholinergic system in the forebrain. This research throws new light
on the nature of consciousness, in particular in connection with the debate
between Naïve Realists and Physiological Realists.
Correspondence: John Smythies, Center for Brain and Cognition, UCSD
and the Institute of Neurology, University College, London. Email: smythies@psy2.ucsd.edu
