A new study published this week in Trends in Ecology & Evolution reveals that the human mind has, in some respects, a unique ability to think outside the box. Although humans aren’t able to replicate the kind of thinking done on a computer—and many of us wouldn’t dream of doing so—our own ability to explore and visualize, rather than to simply copy, is a striking example.
A team of scientists led by a professor of psychology and cognitive science at the University of Arizona (OU) in Tucson found that when presented with a series of images, the brain can automatically switch from “visual” to “verbal” thinking—a process known as mirroring. When presented with multiple images that were clearly related, for example, the brain can “unify” these multiple images into a coherent image, essentially mirroring the human mind’s abilities to visualize—or “see”—with a greater precision than our counterparts.
The authors of the study, led by Dr. Peter F. Kosslyn, point out that while “imagine” thought processes can mirror the human mind, the researchers weren’t seeking for anything like “thinking.” Rather, they were interested in “what happens when an individual sees an image that shares a central concept, such as one’s own face,” says Kosslyn in a statement.
Specifically, the study’s findings suggest that mirroring happens when our own brains try to understand the complex meaning behind the imagery. The findings, the researchers write, “contradict an apparent dichotomy between the mental operations of ‘visual’ and ‘verbal’ thinking.” In other words, Kosslyn says in a news release, “our ability to ‘see’ with greater precision can be understood in the same way our brains would understand our own mental states.”
The study, carried out by the University of Arizona psychology faculty, was conducted in collaboration with researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). “Our experiments show that by comparing the human brain with computer simulations, we may be able to map out a kind of ‘neural circuitry’ in the human brain,” says Kosslyn.
In the study, the researchers created three image sequences. One involved a human face, and one included a human face and a dog head. After the researchers set the animal images to have all the features normally found in human faces—lips, eyes, nose, and jaw—suspecting they would create a similar neural network pattern, they performed a task
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