Image and Brain: The Resolution of the Imagery Debate

How are images employed in processing information? This work by Harvard psychologist Stephen Kosslyn integrates a 20-year research programme on the nature of high-level vision and mental imagery. Image and Brain marshals insights and empirical results from computer vision, neuroscience, and cognitive science to develop a general theory of visual mental imagery, its relation to visual perception and its implementation in the human brain. The theory is tested with brain-scanning techniques with results that provide strong support for the critical role that imagery plays in how the brain interprets the world.