Tag: psychology

psychology and artLeave a comment

Psychology and/of art

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

As university blogs (learning logs) are transitory creatures, this will be the permanent home of links to research papers originating in psychology and having relevance to art. This is about pseudo-hallucinations (vivid mental imagery) and Ganzflicker. Pseudo-hallucinations: why some people see more vivid mental images than others – test yourself here (theconversation.com) Cognitive flexibility, IQ, and creativity. IQ tests can’t measure it, but ‘cognitive flexibility’ is key to learning and creativity (theconversation.com) How context (a museum) affects your appreciation of art. BPS Research Digest Feb 2015. Why colour shifted abstracts are less attractive than the original (they used a Delaunay … Continue reading Psychology and/of art

Research & ReflectionLeave a comment

Art, science and the paradoxes of perception – via The Conversation

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

The fact that the visual system has to do all this work before we can recognise an object shows us that the objects we perceive are not just “there” in the world. They have to be meticulously created within our neurobiology in order to exist for us. But again, cut open a brain, probe its neurons, and you will find no sea creatures or cosmic storms, only electrochemical activity. Objects, like colours, are tangibly real yet are also untraceable figments of the mind – a contradictory state of affairs. In effect, nothing we perceive through any of our senses is … Continue reading Art, science and the paradoxes of perception – via The Conversation

Coursework, Research & ReflectionLeave a comment

Aphantasia – absence of ‘mind’s eye’

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Nothing to do with never having seen a Disney cartoon, and everything to do with mental imagery, aphantasia is a newly described condition in which people are unable to exercise their ‘mind’s eye’ or ‘get a picture’ in their heads. Typically, they’ve thought other people were speaking metaphorically and, when a range of neuropsychological tests became available through a research project, were surprised to find this wasn’t so. Rather like colour blindness, you have no concept of the missing colour and so no way of knowing you can’t see it unless you come across someone who can. One of the … Continue reading Aphantasia – absence of ‘mind’s eye’

Commentary, Coursework, Research & ReflectionLeave a comment

Aphantasia – absence of ‘mind’s eye’

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Nothing to do with never having seen a Disney cartoon, and everything to do with mental imagery, aphantasia is a newly described condition in which people are unable to exercise their ‘mind’s eye’ or ‘get a picture’ in their heads. Typically, they’ve thought other people were speaking metaphorically and, when a range of neuropsychological tests became available through a research project, were surprised to find this wasn’t so. Rather like colour blindness, you have no concept of the missing colour and so no way of knowing you can’t see it unless you come across someone who can. One of the … Continue reading Aphantasia – absence of ‘mind’s eye’