Arnold Derek H, Hutchinson Mary, Bouyer Loren N, Schwarzkopf D Samuel, Pellicano Elizabeth, Saurels Blake W
Perception Lab, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Australia.
Perception Lab, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Australia.
Cortex. 2025 Feb;183:53-65. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.10.020. Epub 2024 Nov 26.
There are substantial differences in the capacity of people to have imagined visual experiences, ranging from a lifelong inability (Congenital Aphantasia) to people who report having imagined experiences that are as vivid as actually seeing (Hyper-Phantasia). While Congenital Aphantasia has typically been framed as a cognitive deficit, it is possible that a weak or absent ability to have imagined visual sensations is balanced by a heightened resistance to intrusive thoughts - which are experienced as an imagined sensation. Here, we report on a direct test of that proposition. We asked people to either imagine, or to try not to imagine having a range of audio and visual experiences while we recorded their brain activity with electroencephalography (EEG). Ratings describing the subjective vividness of different people's voluntary visualisations predicted if they would also report having involuntary visualisations - such as an imagined experience of seeing a pink elephant when they were asked not to. Both the prevalence of different people's involuntary visualisations and the typical vividness of their visualisations could be predicted by neural correlates of disinhibition, working memory, and neural feedback. Our data suggest that the propensity of people to have involuntary visual experiences can scale with the subjective intensity of their typical experiences of visualisation.
人们产生想象视觉体验的能力存在显著差异，从终生无法做到（先天性phantasia）到声称拥有与实际所见一样生动的想象体验的人（超phantasia）。虽然先天性phantasia通常被视为一种认知缺陷，但想象视觉感觉的能力较弱或缺失，可能会被对侵入性思维的更高抵抗力所平衡——侵入性思维会被体验为一种想象感觉。在此，我们报告对这一命题的直接测试。我们让人们在我们用脑电图（EEG）记录他们的大脑活动时，要么想象，要么尝试不去想象一系列的音频和视觉体验。描述不同人自主想象的主观生动程度的评分，预测了他们是否也会报告有非自主想象——比如当被要求不要想象时，却看到了一头粉色大象的想象体验。不同人的非自主想象的发生率及其想象的典型生动程度，都可以通过去抑制、工作记忆和神经反馈的神经关联来预测。我们的数据表明，人们产生非自主视觉体验的倾向可能与他们典型想象体验的主观强度成比例。
