Visual experience feels seamless and complete, yet evidence shows that a surprising amount of information regularly goes unnoticed. Three of the largest bottlenecks constraining visual processing include retinal sampling, cortical organization, and attentional selection. The perceptual consequences of these bottlenecks are revealed by phenomena such as inattentional blindness and visual...
Visual mental imagery-the ability to generate percept-like experiences in the absence of external stimuli-varies widely across individuals, from vivid visualization to aphantasia, the reported absence of imagery. Evidence from neurological patients and functional neuroimaging converges to challenge the classical view that imagery depends on the reactivation of the early visual cortex. Instead,...