sn13+@andrew.cmu.edu (S. Narasimhan) (12/13/89)
> Excerpts from mail: 12-Dec-89 reponse to some comments Mark > Ahlenius@uunet.UU.N (730) > You made some interesting points, however I thot i'd comment > on your last addendum about looking into a persons eyes and > seeing their feelings. > I believe what you are interpreting when one does this is really > the muscle movements about the eye (eye lids, brows, facial muscles, etc) > You can see tears of sadness (or perhaps joy) or you can see a frown > or stern look, but if you could isolate just the eyeball separate > from the rest of the head - I don't believe that you could see > anything else. > --> My point was: Even feelings have an associated eye movement > which could be unique . That is why probably, we can > look at a person's eyes and more or less estimate his feelings. Facial > muscle movements could also be present. When one is afraid, for example, > the eyes move rapidly and randomly as if searching for an escape. No > doubt, other organs may also be involved. But during visualisation it is > the eye which is predominantly active. Another example: when person is > thinking deeply his eye movements are characteristic. Have you heard of > this thumbrule: When trying to find out whether a newly born child is > mentally sound, doctors look at its eye movements. These suggests that > eye movement can also indicate a person's mental state. <-- > Also on visualization, is it just remembering, reliving, or conceptualizing? > --> Visualization is neither of these. As I pointed (I'm sorry if > my article was little kind of jumbled) out, visualization is partial > reliving, in the sense that , the eyes are predominantly active. > Remembering is just retrieval of stored data from the memory. However, > remembering may sometimes involve visualising. Example: Consider that > you are trying to recall someone's phone number. Sometimes, you are able > to recall it spontaneously. If you can't then you may try to recall some > situation ,perhaps the event in which that person gave you the phone > number, etc., and try to recall the no. The former is just remembering > and the latter *involves* visualisation also. If you're still not > convinced try to do the above , but while watching your eye movements. > While doing the latter you may find that your eyes move rather rapidly > trying to visualise or rather simulate the exact surroundings in which > the original event took place.<-- > It all relates to the mysterious minds eye, doesnt it? When I say > the word elephant - try not to think of a picture of an elephant - > its not possible. > --> This is exactly what I was also trying to convey. Apart from > contexts involving logic or reason , we always retreive a picture of > the object. But, obviously it cannot be a picture in the real sense. My > claim was that we retrieve the associated EYE MOVEMENTS to visualise > the object. Also note that you can never think of an object. You can > only think *about* it. <-- Sundar Narasimhan.