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+--- Thread: Research Imagination is more than sensory replay (/thread-20091.html)
Imagination is more than sensory replay - C C - Mar 31, 2026
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1121120
INTRO: Imagination is one of the most powerful things our brains can do. We can relive past events while taking a walk, rehearse future conversations through inner speech or sense the heat of a fire without touching it — allowing us to learn, plan and avoid danger without direct experience.
Why imagination is often accompanied by mental imagery remains a longstanding question. When one thinks of an apple, for example, many “see” an image of an apple in their mind. When one thinks of their favorite song, many “hear” that song playing in their mind, including vocals and specific lyrics. Mental imagery has often been thought to rely mainly on reactivating the brain’s sensory regions in the absence of input — a process known as sensory reinstatement.
But a new Northwestern University study suggests that higher‑level brain systems that interpret and organize perception may also play a central role in imagination.
The scientists asked study participants to imagine different scenarios, such as a child’s birthday party or a castle on a hill, while undergoing individual‑level precision fMRI scanning. The findings suggest that imagination is not simply a copy of sensation. Instead, it appears to emerge at later stages of processing, when the brain represents information holistically as scenes, words, events or ideas rather than raw sensory input.
“When you ask someone to imagine the sound of a kid’s birthday party, they don’t just hear it — they also automatically picture the scene,” said senior author Rodrigo Braga, assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “It makes sense that imagination operates in this holistic, higher‑level space, given that we use it to plan, understand and speculate.”
The study was published March 31 in Neuron. The findings suggest mental imagery is closely tied to higher-level cognitive functions, as opposed to being a strictly sensory phenomenon... (MORE - details, no ads)
RE: Imagination is more than sensory replay - Magical Realist - Apr 1, 2026
I've noticed after I smell a strong foul odor, for a while after I am removed from it I still imagine I can still smell it. The ghost of it lingers so to speak in my nostrils. The same with sounds, like a distant siren. Even after it is gone, I still imagine I can hear it. I believe this indicates that at the baseline sensory level, there is already a kind of memory in play--an afterimage or "phantom" of the sensation even when the stimulus has ceased. Is it in the brain? Or perhaps in matter itself--echos of electrifications long gone still reverberating thruout the molecular cathedrals of our flesh.
Google AI:
"Hysteresis is the phenomenon where the state of a system depends on its history, not just its current input. It is characterized by a lag between a change in input forces and the corresponding response, often resulting in different outputs depending on whether the input is increasing or decreasing.
Memory Effect: The system "remembers" its past state.
Lagging Response: The effect lags behind the cause (from Greek hysterein, meaning "to come late")."