Hack #31. Minimize Imaginary Distances

If you imagine an inner space, the movements you make in it take up time according to how large they are. Reducing the imaginary distances involved makes manipulating mental objects easier and quicker.

Mental imagery requires the same brain regions that are used to represent real sensations. If you ask someone to imagine hearing the first lines to the song “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix, the activity in her auditory cortex increases. If you ask someone to imagine what the inside of a teapot looks like, his visual cortex works harder. If you put a schizophrenic who is hearing voices into a brain scanner, when she hears voices, the parts of the brain that represent language sounds really are active—she’s not lying; she really is hearing voices.

Any of us can hear voices or see imaginary objects at will; it’s only when we lose the ability to suppress the imaginings that we think of it as a problem.

When we imagine objects and places, this imagining creates mental space that is constrained in many of the ways real space is constrained. Although you can imagine impossible movements like your feet lifting up and your body rotating until your head floats inches above the floor, these movements take time to imagine and the amount of time is affected by how large they are.

In Action

Is the left shape in Figure 2-28 the same as the right shape?

Is the left shape the same as the right shape?

Figure 2-28. Is ...

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