Stephen Kosslyn Quotes

Stephen Michael Kosslyn is an American psychologist, neuroscientist, and expert on the science of learning. Kosslyn is President and CEO of Foundry College, an online two-year college designed to help working adults develop skills and knowledge that will not be automated in the foreseeable future. Prior to that, Kosslyn was Founding Dean and Chief Academic Officer of the Minerva Schools at KGI . And before that, he was the John Lindsley Professor of Psychology in Memory of William James and Dean of Social Science at Harvard University. Wikipedia

✵ 30. November 1948

Stephen Kosslyn: 12 quotes0 likes

Famous Stephen Kosslyn Quotes

“During the late 1970s and early 1980s there was vigorous debate about the nature of visual mental imagery. One position (championed primarily by Pylyshyn, 1973, 1981) held that representations that underlie the experience of mental imagery are the same type as those used in language; the other position (which my colleagues and I supported, e. g., Kosslyn, 1980, 1994) held that these representations serve to depict, not describe, objects. The debate evolved over time… but always centred on the nature of the internal representations that underlie the experience of visualisation.”

Stephen Kosslyn

Stephen M. Kosslyn, "Mental images and the brain." Cognitive Neuropsychology 22.3-4 (2005): p. 333

“Even if it were clear what was meant, this sort of treatment would seem closer to describing what is taking place than to explaining it. I do not want to deny the value of describing a phenomenon; rich descriptions facilitate theorizing, and there is no more astute observer than Piaget. But in my view explanations of cognitive phenomena should specify the ways in which functional capacities operate. Piaget and Inhelder’s account is more on the level of intentionality, and hence is open to multiple interpretations at the level of the function of the brain. The do not specify how interiorized imitation operates, nor have they specified the format or content of the image. This level of discourse will never produce process adequacy, and hence seems of limited value.”

Stephen Kosslyn

Source: Image and Mind. 1980, p. 411

“Resist the temptation to use special effects. Think about science fiction movies with lots of special effects: If you notice that special effects are special effects, they will fail.”

Stephen Kosslyn

Source: Better PowerPoint (R), 2010, p. 24

“A mental image occurs when a representation of the type created during the initial phases of perception is present but the stimulus is not actually being perceived; such representations preserve the perceptible properties of the stimulus and ultimately give rise to the subjective experience of perception.”

Stephen Kosslyn

Source: Image and Mind. 1980, p. 6

“Bullets are a convenient way to present the separate elements of a list. However, bullets are a bit like salt—often essential to bring out the best, but distasteful if overdone.”

Stephen Kosslyn

Source: Better PowerPoint (R), 2010, p. 54

“These organizational processes result in our perceptions being structured into units corresponding to objects and properties of objects. It is these larger units that may be stored and later assembled into images that are experienced as quasi-pictorial, spatial entities resembling those evoked during perception itself…. It is erroneous to equate image representations with mental photographs, since this would overlook the fact that images are composed from highly processed perceptual encodings.”

Stephen Kosslyn

Source: Image and Mind. 1980, p. 19

Stephen Kosslyn Quotes

“Physics seems to have done reasonably well in studying electrons, although there is not to this day a precise definition of this term.”

Stephen Kosslyn

Source: Image and Mind. 1980, p. 470

“It is hard to define something one knows little about”

Stephen Kosslyn

Source: Image and Mind. 1980, p. 469

“Mr. Magoo Rule: Text and graphics must be easily distinguished and recognized. Don ́t make your audience members feel like the vision challenged Mr. Magoo—viewers of an electronic slideshow should not risk eyestrain!”

Stephen Kosslyn

Source: Better PowerPoint (R), 2010, p. 11

“Like pictures, images seem to depict information about interval spatial extents. The scanning experiments support the claim that portions of images depict corresponding portions of the represented objects, and that the spatial relations between portions of the image index the spatial relations between the corresponding portions of the imaged objects.”

Stephen Kosslyn

Source: Image and Mind. 1980, p. 51

“But because of the way in which depictions represent, there is a correspondence between parts and spatial relations of the representation and those of the object; this structural mapping, which confers a type of resemblance, underlies the way images convey specific content. In this respect images are like pictures. Unlike words and symbols, depictions are not arbitrarily paired with what they represent.”

Stephen Kosslyn

Stephen M. Kosslyn, ‎William L. Thompson, ‎Giorgio Ganis (2006), The Case for Mental Imagery. p. 44; Cited in: Michael R. W. Dawson (2013). Mind, Body, World: Foundations of Cognitive Science. p. 108

“We must begin by distinguishing between visual mental imagery and visual perception: Visual perception occurs while a stimulus is being viewed, and includes functions such as visual recognition (i. e., registering that a stimulus is familiar) and identification (i. e., recalling the name, context, or other information associated with the object). Two types of mechanisms are used in visual perception: “bottom-up” mechanisms are driven by the input from the eyes; in contrast, “top-down” mechanisms make use of stored information (such as knowledge, belief, expectations, and goals). Visual mental imagery is a set of representations that gives rise to the experience of viewing a stimulus in the absence of appropriate sensory input. In this case, information in memory underlies the internal events that produce the experience. Unlike afterimages, mental images are relatively prolonged.”

Stephen Kosslyn

Stephen M. Kosslyn, "Mental images and the brain." Cognitive Neuropsychology 22.3-4 (2005): p. 334

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