Your Mind's Eye

Close your eyes and imagine an umbrella. Now open your eyes and choose which of these umbrellas best matches the image you had in your mind’s eye. This is part of a ‘vividness task’ used by researchers exploring how we see things. Short or long-sighted people were more likely to imagine a blurred (top row, centre) or black and white (top row, right) umbrella compared to people with flawless vision. As people with less-than-perfect eyesight were more likely to create less-than-perfect mental images (even if they wear glasses or contact lenses), it supports the theory that we use the same parts of the brain to ‘see’ both real and imagined objects. So, should you be concerned if you chose a blurred image? Not really – it seems that people with vision problems use other strategies for gathering information to help compensate for their poor eyesight.

Written by Sarah McLusky

Sarah McLusky

Writer

Sarah McLusky is a freelance science education consultant. Her work varies from writing resources and managing science fairs to making rockets. Sarah used to be a ‘proper’ scientist and has a PhD in Plant Biochemistry.

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• Liana Palermo
• Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
• Originally published under a Creative Commons Attribution license
• Published in PLoS ONE 8(6): e65161