In this talk, we explore the relationship between literary imagination and ambiguity intended from a neuroaesthetic perspective. We argue that (1) ambiguity serves as a primary catalyst for literary imagination, playing a crucial role in the reader’s construction of mental images and the envisioning of counterfactual worlds; (2) the characteristics of ambiguity, as described by Zeki — namely, polysemic, unfinished, and dynamic images — are essential for generating ambiguity within literary texts; and (3) some literary works, that meta-represent the imaginative process at work, reveal that polysemic, unfinished and dynamic qualities of literary imagery are intrinsic to the activation of the imagination. This discussion aims to highlight how ambiguity not only enriches literary experiences but also stimulates the cognitive processes underlying imaginative engagement. 

Philology and German Literary Studies 

"Ambiguity" in a neuroesthetic sense means certainty in each of many equally plausible interpretations for a given stimulus. This applies to various modes and modalities of experience, including the perception, cognition, imagination, emotion, as well as the conceptualisation of things, and whether they are present or absent for us. Here, I focus on the role of imagination in pictures, and I present the medium of depiction as a case of a more general phenomenon of vision. I argue that the relationship between ambiguity and imagination in visual experiences is reciprocal: that ambiguous vision necessarily involves imagination, and that imaginative vision necessarily involves ambiguity, thus situating both as fundamental processes and products of our brains. Evidence for these claims shall come from two great Spanish interdisciplinary studies of the arts and sciences. 

Philosophy 

Imagination allows us to perceive objects and events in their absence, which can help us solve problems, plan ahead, and express ourselves creatively. In some cases we even involuntarily have imagined experiences, such as during hallucinations. I will discuss how the brain enables these visual experiences, drawing on examples from brain injury research. Notably, recent studies on Riddoch syndrome — a condition where blind patients can still consciously perceive visual motion — reveal that these patients occasionally report perceiving motion despite none being present, a phenomenon known as gnosanopsia. Using brain imaging techniques, we found that this form of hallucination or visual imagination not only correlates with activity in visual motion areas, but also in regions associated with memory and conflict resolution. These results demonstrate the intricate ways in which brain activity shapes our perception of the world around us. 

Neurobiology 

Comments by Freddie: Two cases of perception and imagination in animals. [00:45-04:45]

Question #1: Samuel spoke about parts of the brain that are active during certain forms of perception and imagination. Could you please say a bit more about some of the other parts of the brain?

Replies by Samuel and Renata. [06:00-09:20]

Question #2: Is imagination a faculty that helps stabilise the world? 

Replies by Samuel, Taylor, and Freddie. [09:30-18:00]

Comments by Renata: A case of beauty in Goethe. [18:20-19:40]

Question #3: I think maybe it is not the experience of beauty that is subjective, but the expression of the experience of beauty that is subjective. When Samuel said that everyone is imagining everything, I was thinking about how language works and how we have common concepts that we each subjectively understand; for example, perhaps truth is one thing for me and it is something else or different for a friend whose vision is different from mine. Maybe beauty is similar, in a way, that we share a sense of what beauty is like, but we experience it in different ways or express it in different ways?

Replies by Renata and Samuel. [21:00-23:15]

Question #4: Is science itself a form of imagination? We create knowledge out of sensory input and then we construct reality by means of our cognitive apparatus; we say that we are perceiving reality but the notions and theories that we create, which are conceptual and abstract, depart from such sensory input in a way. So, could we say that scientific theory is also rooted in imagination? Likewise, could we say that imagination is a way of overcoming the limits of knowledge? 

Replies by Renata and Taylor. [25:30-30:30] 

Comments by Samuel: The case of imagination in dreams. [30:40-33:00]

Please note that this transcript of questions and comments has been edited somewhat for clarity and conciseness. Many thanks to the audience for their participation.

Imagination has always occupied a prominent position in the interests of literary studies, but it has served studies from other disciplines concerned on knowledge acquisition. The connections between the process of acquiring knowledge by means of imagination and literary imagination can be traced back to the very origins of literary theory. On this occasion, the theory on literary imagination will be reviewed under enactivist accounts of cognition. This perspective understands imagination as part of a greater process in any given organism of acquiring knowledge in order to regulate itself with the environment. On this account, literary imagination will be presented as another form of cognition that contributes to the regulation of a given self in their contact with the external world.

Philology and Spanish Literary Studies

Oscar Wilde’s literary and aesthetic productions belong to the 19th century. Yet, he was able to anticipate findings in the field of cognitivism that we intend to bring to the fore. By closely analysing three of his most acclaimed essays, we intend to demonstrate how imagination as an embodied and enacted faculty plays an essential role in Wilde’s conception of the artistic creation which, according to him, is parallel to the development of the human character. We ultimately wish to celebrate Wilde’s 170th birth anniversary and to pay homage to his unique genius. 

Philology and English Literary Studies

It is comforting to consider imagination a uniquely human trait: that the ability to form imagery, concepts and ideas independently of senses and stimuli is proof of our superior intellect and reasoning, relative to other species. However, there is considerable evidence for imaginative capacity in a variety of animals. In addition to reviewing how examples of tool use and problem solving all demonstrate a capacity for imagination, whether in birds or in primates, this talk also questions how imagination might have evolved. By analysing a combination of perception in mating strategies, adaptive camouflaging behaviours, and the role of play in juvenile development across a broad range of species, we can perhaps attempt to piece together how inherited concepts of how things should look might eventually give rise to thinking on how they could appear – with all the consequences for how art and culture may then flourish.

Biology

Question #1: Animals can create art, as you say, but it is art for a purpose; for example, mating or hiding. Do you think that animals can create art for leisure, as humans do? 

Reply by Freddie. [01:20-02:45]

Question #2: I was thinking about ravens, which I find to be amazing animals, and many of their features. Specifically, I was thinking about their ability to hate someone, normally to hate them for life, and to pass along their hatred to younger generations of ravens — which, as far as I know, do not necessarily need to see the hated person to hate them. Do you think that there is an imaginative process involved for these younger generations of ravens? 

Reply by Freddie. [04:00-05:15]

Question #3: I was thinking about enacted imagination. Specifically, I was thinking of Lovecraft and his character of Cthulhu, who turns you mad because you don't or can't understand it. I think this does involve some enactment, but at the same time it does not, because you cannot fully enact or comprehend what you are seeing. So, could you perhaps help me make sense of what I think about this case? 

Replies by Benito and Taylor. [06:15-12:00]

Question #4: I was thinking about anxiety after fear was mentioned. Anxiety is an idea of being afraid or scared of things that have not happened yet. So, is anxiety connected with imagination? If so, since we saw pictures of the brain areas that are active during perception and imagination, I would like to know whether the brain areas that are active during stress and anxiety are the same areas? 

Replies by Samuel and Grazia. [12:55-15:35]

Question #5: Earlier, we said that animals playing or pretending is a form of imagination; however, in my opinion, this raises the philosophical question of whether imagination is apprehended? Is imagination something that you apprehend and then increase by playing, pretending, or practising?

Replies by Freddie, Renata, and Samuel. [16:15-21:25]

Question #6: I have been thinking about the research of María Zambrano, and I would like to know how you fit these theories of imagination into her account of poetic reason (razón poética)? 

Reply by Noelia. [22:00-23:00]

Question #7: Wilde says that natural life imitates art because the way that we interpret nature depends upon the art that we have created, but the art that we have created depends upon the way that we interpret nature. So, there is a circle between these two concepts, but where is the start of this circle? Is this perhaps where inspiration exists? 

Replies by Noelia, Benito, and Renata. [24:30-31:00]

Question #8: I would like to pose a question to my fellow panellists about the relationships between reality and virtuality, nature and art. It is a question raised by a famous quote by Kant, which wonderfully summarises the points that we have discussed today. So, this is a general question about your thoughts on this claim by Kant: 

"In dealing with a product of fine art [as beautiful], we must become conscious that it is art rather than nature, and yet, in its form it must seem as free from all constraint of chosen rules as if it were a product of mere nature. It is this feeling of freedom in the play of our cognitive powers [by which is meant understanding, judgment, and imagination] … that underlies pleasure, which alone is universally communicable." Critique of Judgment §45

Replies by Renata and Benito, Grazia and Taylor. [33:00-37:10]

Please note that this transcript of questions and comments has been edited somewhat for clarity and conciseness. Many thanks to the audience for their participation.

Imagination has long been and continues to be an enigmatic concept, frequently addressed but rarely fully elucidated, even by prominent philosophers such as Aristotle, Hume, Kant, and Husserl. Its definition and interpretation changes significantly across different heuristic frameworks — philosophical, aesthetic, poetic, and cognitive. The diverse discourses on imagination have generated persistent, unresolved questions regarding its modalities and effects, particularly concerning the construction of aesthetic and symbolic experiences. Symbolic experiences emerge from our capacity to manipulate tangible elements and perceptions of the real world, exploring through imagination their latent potentialities. [...]

Link: Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 18:1523760, 1-4. DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2024.1523760

Link: Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 18 for other articles in this edited research topic

This study investigates the emotional impact of the theatrical character of the witness, who reports tragic offstage events to other characters and the audience. We examine two plays: Penthesilea by Heinrich von Kleist (1808, premiered 1876), in which two witnesses describe Penthesilea tearing apart her lover, and The Bacchae by Euripides (405 BCE), in which a witness describes Agave killing her son. We propose that the witness acts as a catalyst, provoking in the audience multimodal emotional and imaginative arousal, which is stronger than that provoked by viewing the same events onstage. We term this phenomenon the “Gorgon effect,” referring not only to the mythological figure in both plays but also to the petrifying impact of the Gorgon-like, frozen mimicry of the eyewitnesses addressed as Gorgons.

Link: Texas Studies in Literature and Language 66.4, 422-450. DOI: 10.7560/TSLL66406