Dijkstra Nadine, Bosch Sander E, van Gerven Marcel A J
Radboud University, Donders Insitute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, 6525 EN, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Radboud University, Donders Insitute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, 6525 EN, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
J Neurosci. 2017 Feb 1;37(5):1367-1373. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3022-16.2016. Epub 2017 Jan 10.
Research into the neural correlates of individual differences in imagery vividness point to an important role of the early visual cortex. However, there is also great fluctuation of vividness within individuals, such that only looking at differences between people necessarily obscures the picture. In this study, we show that variation in moment-to-moment experienced vividness of visual imagery, within human subjects, depends on the activity of a large network of brain areas, including frontal, parietal, and visual areas. Furthermore, using a novel multivariate analysis technique, we show that the neural overlap between imagery and perception in the entire visual system correlates with experienced imagery vividness. This shows that the neural basis of imagery vividness is much more complicated than studies of individual differences seemed to suggest.
Visual imagery is the ability to visualize objects that are not in our direct line of sight: something that is important for memory, spatial reasoning, and many other tasks. It is known that the better people are at visual imagery, the better they can perform these tasks. However, the neural correlates of moment-to-moment variation in visual imagery remain unclear. In this study, we show that the more the neural response during imagery is similar to the neural response during perception, the more vivid or perception-like the imagery experience is.
对意象生动性个体差异的神经关联研究表明早期视觉皮层起着重要作用。然而，个体内部的生动性也存在很大波动，以至于仅关注个体之间的差异必然会模糊整体情况。在本研究中，我们表明人类受试者视觉意象瞬间体验生动性的变化取决于包括额叶、顶叶和视觉区域在内的大脑区域大网络的活动。此外，使用一种新颖的多变量分析技术，我们表明整个视觉系统中意象与感知之间的神经重叠与体验到的意象生动性相关。这表明意象生动性的神经基础比个体差异研究似乎所暗示的要复杂得多。
视觉意象是一种将不在我们直接视线范围内的物体可视化的能力：这对记忆、空间推理和许多其他任务都很重要。众所周知，人们的视觉意象能力越强，执行这些任务的能力就越好。然而，视觉意象瞬间变化的神经关联仍不清楚。在本研究中，我们表明意象过程中的神经反应与感知过程中的神经反应越相似，意象体验就越生动或越像感知。
