A cognitive neuroscience of visual cognition: Further developments.

Publisher Summary This chapter indicates how a theory of visual imagery has developed more recently. The chapter uses an approach that relies not only on results from neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, but also on computational analyses of how a machine with the structure of the brain could function in specific ways. The chapter outlines some key properties of imagery that must be explained. the implications of facts about the primate visual system and memory system for how the brain might produce these behaviors are considered. The chapter has briefly sketched some of the directions in which a theory of visual mental imagery may develop. The key innovations have been driven in part by recent discoveries about the neural underpinnings of vision and in part by developments in computer vision. At this stage, in the history of the field, perhaps the most important thing about such theorizing is that it leads to innovative new empirical research. If it does, the theory is serving a crucial role.