Pace Thomas, Koenig-Robert Roger, Pearson Joel
School of Psychology, University of New South Wales.
Psychol Sci. 2023 Nov;34(11):1229-1243. doi: 10.1177/09567976231198435. Epub 2023 Oct 2.
Recent research suggests imagery is functionally equivalent to a weak form of visual perception. Here we report evidence across five independent experiments on adults that perception and imagery are supported by fundamentally different mechanisms: Whereas perceptual representations are largely formed via increases in excitatory activity, imagery representations are largely supported by modulating nonimagined content. We developed two behavioral techniques that allowed us to first put the visual system into a state of adaptation and then probe the additivity of perception and imagery. If imagery drives similar excitatory visual activity to perception, pairing imagery with perceptual adapters should increase the state of adaptation. Whereas pairing weak perception with adapters increased measures of adaptation, pairing imagery reversed their effects. Further experiments demonstrated that these nonadditive effects were due to imagery weakening representations of nonimagined content. Together these data provide empirical evidence that the brain uses categorically different mechanisms to represent imagery and perception.
近期研究表明，表象在功能上等同于一种较弱形式的视觉感知。在此，我们报告了针对成年人的五项独立实验的证据，表明感知和表象由根本不同的机制所支持：感知表征主要通过兴奋性活动的增加而形成，而表象表征主要通过调节非表象内容来支持。我们开发了两种行为技术，使我们能够首先将视觉系统置于适应状态，然后探究感知和表象的叠加性。如果表象驱动与感知相似的兴奋性视觉活动，那么将表象与感知适应器配对应该会增强适应状态。然而，将微弱感知与适应器配对会增加适应的测量值，而将表象与适应器配对则会逆转其效果。进一步的实验表明，这些非叠加效应是由于表象削弱了非表象内容的表征。这些数据共同提供了实证证据，证明大脑使用截然不同的机制来表征表象和感知。
