School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, UNSW Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
Cortex. 2018 Aug;105:83-96. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2017.08.036. Epub 2017 Sep 9.
The functional sensory effects and commonalties between mental imagery of different visual features such as color, form or motion remains largely unknown. Mental imagery of static visual features, including color and orientation, can have a facilitative, priming effect on subsequent perception. However, whether motion imagery can have a similar effect remains unknown. Here we used the binocular rivalry method as a measure of motion mental imagery. After imagining or viewing motion of a particular direction, participants were required to report the dominant motion direction in a brief motion rivalry stimulus. We found that motion imagery can have a facilitative priming effect on subsequent motion rivalry perception, and this effect can be attenuated by concurrent expanding and contracting perceptual motion, but not by static or flickering uniform luminance. Unlike color or orientation imagery, the effect of motion imagery on subsequent rivalry was location independent. We also observed this facilitative priming effect with prior low-contrast perceptual motion, but prior high-contrast motion induced a suppressive effect. Simultaneous imagery and perceptual motion in opposite directions induced priming, while congruent directions did not. Counter to prior findings, these results suggest motion imagery can have a priming effect on perception and that the rivalry method can be used to assess visual motion imagery. These results provide evidence for visual imagery as a multi-feature structure.
不同视觉特征（如颜色、形状或运动）的心理意象的功能感觉效应和共性在很大程度上尚不清楚。静态视觉特征（包括颜色和方向）的心理意象可以对后续感知产生促进、启动效应。然而，运动意象是否具有类似的效果尚不清楚。在这里，我们使用双眼竞争方法作为运动心理意象的测量方法。在想象或观看特定方向的运动后，参与者需要在短暂的运动竞争刺激中报告主导运动方向。我们发现运动意象可以对后续运动竞争感知产生促进启动效应，这种效应可以被同时进行的扩展和收缩感知运动减弱，但不能被静态或闪烁的均匀亮度减弱。与颜色或方向意象不同，运动意象对后续竞争的影响与位置无关。我们还观察到先前低对比度感知运动的这种促进启动效应，但先前高对比度运动产生抑制效应。相反方向的同时意象和感知运动产生启动效应，而一致方向则没有。与先前的发现相反，这些结果表明运动意象可以对感知产生启动效应，并且竞争方法可用于评估视觉运动意象。这些结果为视觉意象作为一种多特征结构提供了证据。
