Seeing the Bigger Picture: Visual Imagination and the Social Brain

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I studied multi-modal aspects of visual imagination in relation to visual art and complex images, defining 'visual imagination' broadly as a dynamic of complex psychological processes that integrate visual information with prior experiences and knowledge to construct internal models of oneself, others and the outside world. This reflects the ultimate aim of my work to develop engaging cultural and clinical resources that strengthen social brain networks, tailored to personal interests, age and cognitive health. I pursued two interrelated research programmes based primarily at the Wellcome Collection, as part of my interdisciplinary residency with Created Out of Mind. Research SummaryI used complementary neuroscientific and visual research methods to probe relationships between visual imagination and the social brain in neurologically healthy adults and people living with various forms of dementia.The Social Brain Atlas and connectome (Alcalá López et al. , Cerebral Cortex 2017) was recently computed from 3972 functional neuroimaging studies in 22712 healthy adults: to contextualise my research in the social brain, I first translated the social brain connectome to functional infographics (relational spatial representations) of the four hierarchical processing levels of the Social Brain Atlas, and generated visual imagination brain profiles in healthy adults and profiles of canonical dementia syndromes. I used these to generate hypotheses and guide analysis of my neuroscientific experiments.I recruited three participant cohorts: 17 neurologically healthy adults aged 20-30 years; 20 neurologically healthy adults aged 50+ years; and 11 senior adults living with various forms of dementia.I designed five neuroscientific experiments, in which I used advanced technologies to capture physiological responses and established as well as novel visual research methods to study neuropsychological responses to visual art, complex imagery and colour experiences. I employed an arts-based facilitated conversation methodology, Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS); and I developed novel quantitative methods to analyse recorded eye tracking data, electrodermal activity and speech samples. I used both parametric and non-parametric statistical methods to compare participant cohorts.In parallel with the neuroscientific research, I developed a series of art experiments at UCL Institute of Making, and my art studio in Limehouse, East London. My artistic research complemented my neuroscientific work by emphasising individual experience over generic perceptual mechanisms: by creating space for personal interactions with art, the research becomes contextualised in the social world. I created two photographic experiments to study how interactions between light, colour and form affect early visual perception; a series of interactive optical instruments to alter wearers' visual perception ('Perspectacles'); and an interactive virtual reality installation based on my neuroscientific experiments. Feedback from my artistic research informed the art exhibition I created to complement my PhD thesis. Future DirectionsFollowing on from this study, with my collaborators I plan to develop fully interactive, animated digital platforms for the Social Brain Atlas and VTS.I will seek to replicate and extend my findings in larger cohorts of senior adults living with well-defined dementia diagnoses, including functional neuroimaging techniques to ground behavioural and physiological findings in the brain. Beyond academia, I will use the findings of this study to create programmes for art museums and other cultural institutions as well as commercial applications with my company The Thinking Eye, that aim to strengthen social engagement, careful observation, divergent thinking and communication skills, through visual art interactions. Informed by my PhD findings, the design of these programmes will be tailored to promoting healthy cognitive ageing and wellbeing.