Today a study was reported on Fox new that using fMRI scientists can reproduce people’s mental images. See:
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/03/28/know-what-youre-thinking-scientists-find-way-to-read-minds/
The article:
We know what you’re thinking: Scientists find a way to read minds
The name of the study:
Neural portraits of perception: Reconstructing face images from evoked brain activity
A few other studies have reported visual reconstructions from early visual processing areas. On this list I previously mentioned a dramatic example of this shown in a 2012 NIH video:
http://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?Live=11769&bhcp=1
These studies are interesting extensions of the work of perceptual scientists like Stephen Kosslyn, and his theory of mental imagery reported in “The Case for Mental Imagery” (2006). In that book Kosslyn argues for the existence of what I have called brain icons: simple visual representations of key and non-accidental features that can be recalled and pushed into the topographically arranged area of the cerebral cortex called V1.
I have only briefly reviewed actual study reported in the news article above, and it appears to have developed more sophisticated, less direct methods than observation of recalled mental images pressed into V1.
How can this be applied to design?
Since 2002 I have been teaching a course connecting design students to findings in perception. Colin Ware’s book “Information Visualization: Perception for Design” (2000) was one of the earliest of several that have linked design principles to visual perception. If anyone would like a syllabus of the graduate course email me.
In the past 4 years in my research methods course and in my icon research studies, we have developed and used a research method we call Draw-It. A Draw-It survey captures subjects’ neurobiological mental images of concepts that need to be symbolized by symbols/icons. Subjects are given an instrument page that names one or more referent concepts (a referent is the symbol/icon’s intended meaning) and are asked to draw what first comes to mind for each concept. Subjects’ drawn responses are analyzed and the most common images are used to guide the creation of symbols/icons that visually mirror people’s existing mental images. One of our graduate students is working on this as a more broadly applicable research method for the entire spectrum of design disciplines.
I have an article in draft form reporting the use of this method in design practice designing icon system. We’ll report that using the method has proven it can produce more effective icons.
The “Neural Portals” study reports the ability to take our crude Draw-It method much further and with greater precision.
The possibilities for design are profound.
Most broadly, it grounds insights for design in empirical physiological processes. Grounded thus, the method can work universally, across cultural and linguistic barriers (I have done the Draw-It method in various countried in Africa and in India with identical results). It can also work on an individual level. Knowing what people think when they picture a concept is obviously a path for insight for design problem solving orders of magnitude more precise than anything we’ve used to date. It takes ‘user insight’ (forgive the pun) to a whole other level, perhaps an Orwellian level.
Hope this is useful to someone.
Best
Mike
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