Amit Elinor, Hoeflin Caitlyn, Hamzah Nada, Fedorenko Evelina
Brown University, United States; Massachusetts General Hospital, United States.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States.
Neuroimage. 2017 May 15;152:619-627. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.03.029. Epub 2017 Mar 18.
Humans rely on at least two modes of thought: verbal (inner speech) and visual (imagery). Are these modes independent, or does engaging in one entail engaging in the other? To address this question, we performed a behavioral and an fMRI study. In the behavioral experiment, participants received a prompt and were asked to either silently generate a sentence or create a visual image in their mind. They were then asked to judge the vividness of the resulting representation, and of the potentially accompanying representation in the other format. In the fMRI experiment, participants had to recall sentences or images (that they were familiarized with prior to the scanning session) given prompts, or read sentences and view images, in the control, perceptual, condition. An asymmetry was observed between inner speech and visual imagery. In particular, inner speech was engaged to a greater extent during verbal than visual thought, but visual imagery was engaged to a similar extent during both modes of thought. Thus, it appears that people generate more robust verbal representations during deliberate inner speech compared to when their intent is to visualize. However, they generate visual images regardless of whether their intent is to visualize or to think verbally. One possible interpretation of these results is that visual thinking is somehow primary, given the relatively late emergence of verbal abilities during human development and in the evolution of our species.
语言性思维（内心言语）和视觉性思维（意象）。这些模式是相互独立的，还是参与其中一种就必然会参与另一种呢？为了解决这个问题，我们进行了一项行为学研究和一项功能磁共振成像（fMRI）研究。在行为学实验中，参与者收到一个提示，然后被要求要么默默生成一个句子，要么在脑海中创建一个视觉图像。接着，他们被要求判断所产生表征的生动程度，以及另一种形式中可能伴随出现的表征的生动程度。在fMRI实验中，参与者必须根据提示回忆句子或图像（他们在扫描前已熟悉这些内容），或者在对照的知觉条件下阅读句子并观看图像。我们观察到内心言语和视觉意象之间存在不对称性。具体而言，在语言性思维过程中，内心言语的参与程度比视觉性思维时更高，但在两种思维模式下，视觉意象的参与程度相似。因此，与旨在进行视觉化时相比，人们在刻意的内心言语过程中会生成更强烈的语言表征。然而，无论他们的意图是进行视觉化还是进行语言性思考，都会生成视觉图像。这些结果的一种可能解释是，鉴于语言能力在人类发展和物种进化过程中出现得相对较晚，视觉思维在某种程度上具有首要地位。
