Department of Psychology, University of Graz, Universitaetsplatz 2/III, 8010 Graz, Austria.
Behav Brain Funct. 2012 Mar 12;8:13. doi: 10.1186/1744-9081-8-13.
The aim of the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study at 3 T was to investigate the influence of the verbal-visual cognitive style on cerebral activation patterns during mental arithmetic. In the domain of arithmetic, a visual style might for example mean to visualize numbers and (intermediate) results, and a verbal style might mean, that numbers and (intermediate) results are verbally repeated. In this study, we investigated, first, whether verbalizers show activations in areas for language processing, and whether visualizers show activations in areas for visual processing during mental arithmetic. Some researchers have proposed that the left and right intraparietal sulcus (IPS), and the left angular gyrus (AG), two areas involved in number processing, show some domain or modality specificity. That is, verbal for the left AG, and visual for the left and right IPS. We investigated, second, whether the activation in these areas implied in number processing depended on an individual's cognitive style.
42 young healthy adults participated in the fMRI study. The study comprised two functional sessions. In the first session, subtraction and multiplication problems were presented in an event-related design, and in the second functional session, multiplications were presented in two formats, as Arabic numerals and as written number words, in an event-related design. The individual's habitual use of visualization and verbalization during mental arithmetic was assessed by a short self-report assessment.
We observed in both functional sessions that the use of verbalization predicts activation in brain areas associated with language (supramarginal gyrus) and auditory processing (Heschl's gyrus, Rolandic operculum). However, we found no modulation of activation in the left AG as a function of verbalization.
Our results confirm that strong verbalizers use mental speech as a form of mental imagination more strongly than weak verbalizers. Moreover, our results suggest that the left AG has no specific affinity to the verbal domain and subserves number processing in a modality-general way.
本研究旨在使用 3T 功能磁共振成像（fMRI）技术，探讨言语-视觉认知风格对心算过程中大脑激活模式的影响。在心算领域，视觉风格可能意味着将数字和（中间）结果可视化，而言语风格可能意味着数字和（中间）结果被口头重复。在这项研究中，我们首先研究了在进行心算时，言语者是否在语言处理区域表现出激活，而视觉者是否在视觉处理区域表现出激活。一些研究人员提出，涉及数字处理的左、右顶内沟（IPS）和左角回（AG）两个区域表现出某种领域或模态特异性。也就是说，左 AG 与言语相关，左、右 IPS 与视觉相关。其次，我们研究了这些涉及数字处理的区域的激活是否依赖于个体的认知风格。
42 名年轻健康成年人参与了 fMRI 研究。该研究包括两个功能会话。在第一个会话中，以事件相关设计呈现减法和乘法问题，在第二个功能会话中，以事件相关设计呈现两种格式的乘法问题，即阿拉伯数字和书面数字。个体在心算过程中使用可视化和言语化的习惯通过简短的自我报告评估来评估。
我们在两个功能会话中都观察到，言语化的使用预测了与语言（缘上回）和听觉处理（Heschl gyrus， Rolandic operculum）相关的大脑区域的激活。然而，我们没有发现左 AG 的激活随言语化而发生调制。
我们的结果证实，强言语者比弱言语者更强烈地使用心内言语作为心像的一种形式。此外，我们的结果表明，左 AG 与言语领域没有特定的亲和力，而是以一种模态通用的方式支持数字处理。
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