Wei Liuqing, Li Xueying, Huang Lina, Liu Yuansheng, Hu Luming, Shen Wenbin, Ding Qingguo, Liang Pei
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Education, Hubei University, Wuhan, China.
Brain and Cognition Research Center, Faculty of Education, Hubei University, Wuhan, China.
Front Neurosci. 2023 Mar 16;17:1087488. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1087488. eCollection 2023.
Cross-modal correspondence has been consistently evidenced between shapes and other sensory attributes. Especially, the curvature of shapes may arouse the affective account, which may contribute to understanding the mechanism of cross-modal integration. Hence, the current study used the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technique to examine brain activity's specificity when people view circular and angular shapes. The circular shapes consisted of a circle and an ellipse, while the angular shapes consisted of a triangle and a star. Results show that the brain areas activated by circular shapes mainly involved the sub-occipital lobe, fusiform gyrus, sub and middle occipital gyrus, and cerebellar VI. The brain areas activated by angular shapes mainly involve the cuneus, middle occipital gyrus, lingual gyrus, and calcarine gyrus. The brain activation patterns of circular shapes did not differ significantly from those of angular shapes. Such a null finding was unexpected when previous cross-modal correspondence of shape curvature was considered. The different brain regions detected by circular and angular shapes and the potential explanations were discussed in the paper.
形状与其他感官属性之间的跨模态对应关系已得到持续证实。特别是，形状的曲率可能会引发情感反应，这可能有助于理解跨模态整合的机制。因此，当前的研究使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）技术来检查人们观看圆形和角形形状时大脑活动的特异性。圆形形状包括一个圆和一个椭圆，而角形形状包括一个三角形和一颗星。结果表明，由圆形形状激活的脑区主要涉及枕下叶、梭状回、枕中回和小脑VI。由角形形状激活的脑区主要涉及楔叶、枕中回、舌回和距状回。圆形形状的大脑激活模式与角形形状的大脑激活模式没有显著差异。考虑到先前形状曲率的跨模态对应关系，这样的零结果是出乎意料的。本文讨论了圆形和角形形状检测到的不同脑区以及潜在的解释。
