School of Psychology and Centre for Brain Research, The University of Auckland, Auckland 1142, New Zealand.
Brain Research New Zealand, Auckland 1142, New Zealand.
Cereb Cortex. 2018 May 1;28(5):1729-1732. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhx081.
Imagining hypothetical events often entails the construction of a detailed mental simulation. Despite recent advances, debate still surrounds the fundamental constructive process underpinning simulations supported by the hippocampus. Palombo et al. (2016) report findings that suggest that scene construction drives hippocampal engagement during imagination. However, they fail to consider the findings of a previous study using an extremely similar manipulation that generated similar hippocampal findings, but was interpreted in terms of event specificity and relational processing (Addis et al. 2011). While we applaud the general approach taken by Palombo et al. in attempting to distinguish components of mental simulation, a comparison of these 2 papers has brought into sharp relief how the lack of a common theoretical framework can result in significant interpretative ambiguities. In this commentary, we attempt to identify and clarify these as yet unresolved conceptual issues that will require empirical and theoretical attention in future research.
想象假设事件通常需要构建一个详细的心理模拟。尽管最近有了进展，但对于海马体支持的模拟所基于的基本构建过程仍存在争议。Palombo 等人（2016）报告的发现表明，在想象过程中，场景构建会驱动海马体的参与。然而，他们没有考虑到之前一项使用极其相似的操作的研究结果，该操作产生了类似的海马体发现，但根据事件特异性和关系处理进行了解释（Addis 等人，2011）。虽然我们赞赏 Palombo 等人在尝试区分心理模拟组件方面所采取的一般方法，但对这两篇论文的比较清楚地表明，缺乏共同的理论框架会导致解释上的重大歧义。在这篇评论中，我们试图确定和澄清这些尚未解决的概念问题，这些问题将需要在未来的研究中进行实证和理论关注。
