Alexander Sulfaro (Alex)
@sulfaro.bsky.social
Postdoctoral researcher of mental imagery, hallucinations, and working memory at Macquarie University, Sydney.
http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1agUHkoAAAAJ&hl
http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1agUHkoAAAAJ&hl
This might be super relevant 🙂 doi.org/10.31234/osf...
OSF
doi.org
October 15, 2025 at 12:34 AM
This might be super relevant 🙂 doi.org/10.31234/osf...
The logic holds for any imagined object/scene failing to overwrite basic vis features in a retinal image but the extremity of the comparison often gets people to go "Oh, I understand the "seeing" he means now". Very happy to explain the QS account over Zoom too!
October 2, 2025 at 8:40 AM
The logic holds for any imagined object/scene failing to overwrite basic vis features in a retinal image but the extremity of the comparison often gets people to go "Oh, I understand the "seeing" he means now". Very happy to explain the QS account over Zoom too!
I think MI totally affects EVC, but definitely doesn't reactivate like a retinal im. so there's no contradiction: if MI modulates EVC, but not reactivates, you can decode from EVC in fMRI, but won't see cross-decoding in MEG/EEG to early representations, only mid/later ones (which is what we see).
October 2, 2025 at 8:29 AM
I think MI totally affects EVC, but definitely doesn't reactivate like a retinal im. so there's no contradiction: if MI modulates EVC, but not reactivates, you can decode from EVC in fMRI, but won't see cross-decoding in MEG/EEG to early representations, only mid/later ones (which is what we see).
Exactly! I want to do the same: "Here's a list of possible experiences... choose". Would be keen to collab. Still some introspective challenges (e.g. people saying MIs are just like retinal images until "So visualising a pitch black room is visually identical to walking into a real one?") But yes.
October 2, 2025 at 8:19 AM
Exactly! I want to do the same: "Here's a list of possible experiences... choose". Would be keen to collab. Still some introspective challenges (e.g. people saying MIs are just like retinal images until "So visualising a pitch black room is visually identical to walking into a real one?") But yes.
I think detecting atypicality is totally valid as long as we actually define EXACTLY what we mean by "seeing" (I definitely don't reject the possibility of aphantasia), but no one's done this aptly. The QS account tries, though. It just feels like we've drawn the cart before the horse otherwise
October 2, 2025 at 8:02 AM
I think detecting atypicality is totally valid as long as we actually define EXACTLY what we mean by "seeing" (I definitely don't reject the possibility of aphantasia), but no one's done this aptly. The QS account tries, though. It just feels like we've drawn the cart before the horse otherwise
Definitely tricky but I'd predict sound-guided imagery and dreams would be preserved (but the latter would be experienced in a very different way, closer to hazy mental imagery than a retinal image experience)
October 2, 2025 at 7:52 AM
Definitely tricky but I'd predict sound-guided imagery and dreams would be preserved (but the latter would be experienced in a very different way, closer to hazy mental imagery than a retinal image experience)
No guarantee the QS account is actually typical (that's an empirical question), but it's one possible solution to imagery being different to dreams and retinal images while still feeling "seen". To my knowledge, there's no other explanation that holds up to these critiques: philarchive.org/rec/AMYIV
October 2, 2025 at 7:44 AM
No guarantee the QS account is actually typical (that's an empirical question), but it's one possible solution to imagery being different to dreams and retinal images while still feeling "seen". To my knowledge, there's no other explanation that holds up to these critiques: philarchive.org/rec/AMYIV
Fair - could be uniformly, not normally, distributed, but the quasi-sens account covers that variation. I regularly meet people who say they see their imagery as clear as day, and others who say they see nothing, but after enough talk, both often agree that their experience matches a QS experience.
October 2, 2025 at 7:43 AM
Fair - could be uniformly, not normally, distributed, but the quasi-sens account covers that variation. I regularly meet people who say they see their imagery as clear as day, and others who say they see nothing, but after enough talk, both often agree that their experience matches a QS experience.
True, lesions can be fuzzy, but there are multiple case studies and some seem to involve complete destruction and complete blindness - they cannot see anything in front of them, but they say their mental imagery is the same. TMS could touch on the same question, but its effects are much smaller
October 2, 2025 at 6:05 AM
True, lesions can be fuzzy, but there are multiple case studies and some seem to involve complete destruction and complete blindness - they cannot see anything in front of them, but they say their mental imagery is the same. TMS could touch on the same question, but its effects are much smaller
Regarding V1, to me it seems more like the least, rather than most, relevant part of the vis hierarchy for imagery (see pic and also doi.org/10.1016/j.ne...). This fits the quasi-sensory view, but I'm honestly not sure if I'm communicating it well enough given the backlash I get on it.
October 2, 2025 at 5:47 AM
Regarding V1, to me it seems more like the least, rather than most, relevant part of the vis hierarchy for imagery (see pic and also doi.org/10.1016/j.ne...). This fits the quasi-sensory view, but I'm honestly not sure if I'm communicating it well enough given the backlash I get on it.
I then avoid giving them much weight because of (1) criterion/language confounds and (2) if someone doesn't think they can do imagery, even if they actually can, they'll probably do nothing much during a study's imagery period (could that explain most positive aphantasia findings?)
October 2, 2025 at 5:46 AM
I then avoid giving them much weight because of (1) criterion/language confounds and (2) if someone doesn't think they can do imagery, even if they actually can, they'll probably do nothing much during a study's imagery period (could that explain most positive aphantasia findings?)
Using aphant studies to determine what typical imagery is before correctly defining typicality seems circular to me: it presumes that aphants have accurately ascertained ground truth of what typicality is (because they are rejecting it) despite this being the very thing we are trying to figure out.
October 2, 2025 at 5:46 AM
Using aphant studies to determine what typical imagery is before correctly defining typicality seems circular to me: it presumes that aphants have accurately ascertained ground truth of what typicality is (because they are rejecting it) despite this being the very thing we are trying to figure out.
My goal is to determine what "seeing" typical imagery truly means. I assume the lesioned folk had typical imagery before their injury (there's no reason to suspect otherwise), so if they say it's unchanged/just as vivid, that lets us make conclusions about what typical imagery probably involves.
October 2, 2025 at 5:45 AM
My goal is to determine what "seeing" typical imagery truly means. I assume the lesioned folk had typical imagery before their injury (there's no reason to suspect otherwise), so if they say it's unchanged/just as vivid, that lets us make conclusions about what typical imagery probably involves.
No doubt that people's imaginations have diff creativity, content, emotion, etc, but this is why the visualising a black field is good: it controls for all these things, because none of them seem to explain variance in the latent factor. E.g. see the Kind 2017 link
June 25, 2025 at 11:37 PM
No doubt that people's imaginations have diff creativity, content, emotion, etc, but this is why the visualising a black field is good: it controls for all these things, because none of them seem to explain variance in the latent factor. E.g. see the Kind 2017 link
Maybe you're taking vividness diffs to mean any perceptual diffs, & I'm taking them specifically to mean a diff in the latent variable separating retinal and mental image perception. This is why the variance in your survey can be real without it being experienced differently on that latent variable.
June 25, 2025 at 11:36 PM
Maybe you're taking vividness diffs to mean any perceptual diffs, & I'm taking them specifically to mean a diff in the latent variable separating retinal and mental image perception. This is why the variance in your survey can be real without it being experienced differently on that latent variable.
(PS the talk summarises what people who think they have typical imagery think they do. By reference experience, I meant “Is your mental image of X EXACTLY identical to experience Y?” e.g. is visualising a black field EXACTLY identical to the vis experience of a real one?)
June 25, 2025 at 12:05 PM
(PS the talk summarises what people who think they have typical imagery think they do. By reference experience, I meant “Is your mental image of X EXACTLY identical to experience Y?” e.g. is visualising a black field EXACTLY identical to the vis experience of a real one?)
If this seems like I’m talking complete nonsense, please try osf.io/preprints/ps... (the NoC paper's definition was way too vague). I seriously think this is just a misunderstanding of quasi-sensory vs sensory experience. Always happy to take this to a one-on-one discussion too.
June 25, 2025 at 12:04 PM
If this seems like I’m talking complete nonsense, please try osf.io/preprints/ps... (the NoC paper's definition was way too vague). I seriously think this is just a misunderstanding of quasi-sensory vs sensory experience. Always happy to take this to a one-on-one discussion too.
Watched the whole 1.5 hrs. You’re gonna hate me Reshanne, but virtually every person’s description here, from aphant to hyper, can be explained as a different description of the same quasi-sensory experience 🫣
June 25, 2025 at 12:04 PM
Watched the whole 1.5 hrs. You’re gonna hate me Reshanne, but virtually every person’s description here, from aphant to hyper, can be explained as a different description of the same quasi-sensory experience 🫣
I've definitely not thought about dynamics as much but I think as long as people know (which they probably intuitively do) that a flickering image on-screen, for e.g., is just a proxy for whatever they consider "on" and "off" imagery, and not literally a replication, it seems reasonable to me!
June 25, 2025 at 8:51 AM
I've definitely not thought about dynamics as much but I think as long as people know (which they probably intuitively do) that a flickering image on-screen, for e.g., is just a proxy for whatever they consider "on" and "off" imagery, and not literally a replication, it seems reasonable to me!
If it's the same the image at the top of this thread, then my initial criticisms hold. If not, I'll check it out, and you can compare your experience to the quasi-sensory view too.
June 25, 2025 at 8:11 AM
If it's the same the image at the top of this thread, then my initial criticisms hold. If not, I'll check it out, and you can compare your experience to the quasi-sensory view too.
"Imagery can be compared to other types of experiences" Which experiences are reference experiences for what a mental image actually is? We need to define them.
June 25, 2025 at 7:49 AM
"Imagery can be compared to other types of experiences" Which experiences are reference experiences for what a mental image actually is? We need to define them.
Exactly. Everything follows from this. All claims about atypicality are impossible without an accurate reference for typicality. Hence the attempt to explain what quasi-sensory experience even is osf.io/preprints/ps...
June 25, 2025 at 7:47 AM
Exactly. Everything follows from this. All claims about atypicality are impossible without an accurate reference for typicality. Hence the attempt to explain what quasi-sensory experience even is osf.io/preprints/ps...
I love phenomenological reports, and collect them too, but I just can't see how any would get past this argument which we've discussed before (originally from psycnet.apa.org/record/1989-...)
June 25, 2025 at 7:30 AM
I love phenomenological reports, and collect them too, but I just can't see how any would get past this argument which we've discussed before (originally from psycnet.apa.org/record/1989-...)
If imagery can be described as either seen or unseen, cannot be replicated with any real image, is unlike all other experiences, and every attempt to explain its appearance has failed, how can we claim we have validly measure atypical experience when we can't even describe a typical one?
June 25, 2025 at 7:20 AM
If imagery can be described as either seen or unseen, cannot be replicated with any real image, is unlike all other experiences, and every attempt to explain its appearance has failed, how can we claim we have validly measure atypical experience when we can't even describe a typical one?