‘The Eye's Mind - a study of the neural basis of visual imagination and its role in culture’ is a research project based at the University of Exeter Medical School, UK, and funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Innovation Award. It is supervised jointly by the neurologist Adam Zeman, who has a wide interest in the neural basis of experience, in collaboration with the art historian John Onians, who is a pioneer in the use of neuroscience in the humanities. The project unites researchers and disciplines normally isolated from one another in order to study our distinctively human ability to imagine and highlight links between our experience, brain science and art, and throw light on the wide variation in our capacity to 'visualise'. The project investigates the visual imagination from both scientific and artistic positions, pursuing three related strands of enquiry:
Strand 1: A systematic meta-analysis of the large body of research that has examined what happens in the brain when we imagine – and specifically ‘visualise’ - searching for consistent patterns in the varied and sometimes conflicting results of previous studies. Strand 2: A review of the insights into and theories of visual imagination which artists, students of art, philosophers and others have proposed over the two and half thousand years since such thinking began. We ask what questions are raised, by these insights and theories, for the science of imagination. Strand 3: A study of individuals whose visual imagery lies at the extremes of the vividness spectrum. A small proportion of healthy individuals, perhaps two or three in a hundred, lack visual imagination completely, a condition for which we have coined the term 'aphantasia'. We will recruit a group of such people and compare them with a group who use imagery constantly in their work as visual artists, using interviews, brain imaging techniques, and psychological tests. The ‘Eye’s Mind’ researchers are keen to hear from those whose visual imagery lies at the extremes of the vividness spectrum. If you would be interested in taking part in research, please get in touch via the Eye's Mind website. This page is intended to present updates of the project's research, connect with related research, and provide a point of contact for those interested in the project's work.
