Image And Brain

"Image and Brain attempts what is rarely seen in cognitive neuroscience: The Big Picture. To be sure, it is Kosslyn's Big Picture, but that is probably the best there is." -- Irving Biederman, William M. Keck Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Southern California. This long-awaited work by prominent Harvard psychologist Stephen Kosslyn integrates a twenty-year research program 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. It offers a definitive resolution to the long-standing debate about the nature of the internal representation of visual mental imagery. Kosslyn reviews evidence that perception and representation are inextricably linked, and goes on to show how "quasi-pictorial" events in the brain are generated, interpreted, and used in cognition. The theory is tested with brain- scanning techniques that provide stronger evidence than has been possible in the past. Known for his work in high-level vision, one of the most empirically successful areas of experimental psychology, Kosslyn uses a highly interdisciplinary approach. He reviews and integrates an extensive amount of literature in a coherent presentation, and reports a wide range of new findings using a host of techniques. A Bradford Book

This long-awaited work by prominent Harvard psychologist Stephen Kosslyn integrates a twenty-year research program 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. It offers a definitive resolution to the long-standing debate about the nature of the internal representation of visual mental imagery. Kosslyn reviews evidence that perception and representation are inextricably linked, and goes on to show how "quasi-pictorial" events in the brain are generated, interpreted, and used in cognition. The theory is tested with brain-scanning techniques that provide stronger evidence than has been possible in the past. Known for his work in high-level vision, one of the most empirically successful areas of experimental psychology, Kosslyn uses a highly interdisciplinary approach. He reviews and integrates an extensive amount of literature in a coherent presentation, and reports a wide range of new findings using a host of techniques. A Bradford Book

The papers in this volume discuss the current status of the cognitive/neuroscience synthesis in research on vision, whether and how linguistics and neuroscience can be integrated, and how integrative brain mechanisms can be studied through the use of noninvasive brain-imaging techniques. Recent attempts to unify linguistic theory and brain science have grown out of recognition that a proper understanding of language in the brain must reflect the steady advances in linguistic theory of the last forty years. The first Mind Articulation Project Symposium addressed two main questions: How can the understanding of language from linguistic research be transformed through the study of the biological basis of language? And how can our understanding of the brain be transformed through this same research? The best model so far of such mutual constraint is research on vision. Indeed, the two long-term goals of the Project are to make linguistics and brain science mutually constraining in the way that has been attempted in the study of the visual system and to formulate a cognitive theory that more strongly constrains visual neuroscience. The papers in this volume discuss the current status of the cognitive/neuroscience synthesis in research on vision, whether and how linguistics and neuroscience can be integrated, and how integrative brain mechanisms can be studied through the use of noninvasive brain-imaging techniques. Contributors Noam Chomsky, Ann Christophe, Robert Desimone, Richard Frackowiak, Angela Friederici, Edward Gibson, Peter Indefrey, Masao Ito, Willem Levelt, Alec Marantz, Jacques Mehler, Yasushi Miyashita, David Poeppel, Franck Ramus, John Reynolds, Kensuke Sekihara, Hiroshi Shibasaki

This science ebook of award-wiining print edition uses the latest findings from neuroscience research and brain-imaging technology to take you on a journey into the human brain. CGI artworks and brain MRI scans reveal the brain's anatomy in unprecedented detail. Step-by-step sequences unravel and simplify the complex processes of brain function, such as how nerves transmit signals, how memories are laid down and recalled, and how we register emotions. The book answers fundamental and compelling questions about the brain: what does it means to be conscious, what happens when we're asleep,and are the brains of men and women different? Written by award-winning author Rita Carter, this is an accessible and authoritative reference book to a fascinating part of the human body. Thanks to improvements in scanning technology, our understanding of the brain is changing fast. Now in its third edition, the Brain Book provides an up-to-date guide to one of science's most exciting frontiers. With its coverage of over 50 brain-related diseases and disorders - from strokes to brain tumours and schizophrenia - it is also an essential manual for students and healthcare professionals.

The massive amount of nonstandard high-dimensional brain imaging data being generated is often difficult to analyze using current techniques. This challenge in brain image analysis requires new computational approaches and solutions. But none of the research papers or books in the field describe the quantitative techniques with detailed illustrations of actual imaging data and computer codes. Using MATLAB® and case study data sets, Statistical and Computational Methods in Brain Image Analysis is the first book to explicitly explain how to perform statistical analysis on brain imaging data. The book focuses on methodological issues in analyzing structural brain imaging modalities such as MRI and DTI. Real imaging applications and examples elucidate the concepts and methods. In addition, most of the brain imaging data sets and MATLAB codes are available on the author’s website. By supplying the data and codes, this book enables researchers to start their statistical analyses immediately. Also suitable for graduate students, it provides an understanding of the various statistical and computational methodologies used in the field as well as important and technically challenging topics.

When we try to remember whether we left a window open or closed, do we actually see the window in our mind? If we do, does this mental image play a role in how we think? For almost a century, scientists have debated whether mental images play a functional role in cognition. In The Case for Mental Imagery, Stephen Kosslyn, William Thompson, and Giorgio Ganis present a complete and unified argument that mental images do depict information, and that these depictions do play a functional role in human cognition. They outline a specific theory of how depictive representations are used in information processing, and show how these representations arise from neural processes. To support this theory, they seamlessly weave together conceptual analyses and the many varied empirical findings from cognitive psychology and neuroscience. In doing so, they present the conceptual grounds for positing this type of internal representation and summarize and refute arguments to the contrary. Their argument also serves as a historical review of the imagery debate from its earliest inception to its most recent phases, and provides ample evidence that significant progress has been made in our understanding of mental imagery. In illustrating how scientists think about one of the most difficult problems in psychology and neuroscience, this book goes beyond the debate to explore the nature of cognition and to draw out implications for the study of consciousness. Student and professional researchers in vision science, cognitive psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience will find The Case for Mental Imagery to be an invaluable resource for understanding not only the imagery debate, but also and more broadly, the nature of thought, and how theory and research shape the evolution of scientific debates.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a technique used in biomedical imaging and radiology to visualize internal structures of the body. Because MRI provides excellent contrast between different soft tissues, the technique is especially useful for diagnostic imaging of the brain, muscles, and heart.In the past 20 years, MRI technology has improved si