Neural foundations of imagery.
TL;DR: Neuroimaging studies, combined with other methods, are revealing the ways in which imagery draws on mechanisms used in other activities, such as perception and motor control.
Abstract: Mental imagery has, until recently, fallen within the purview of philosophy and cognitive psychology. Both enterprises have raised important questions about imagery, but have not made substantial progress in answering them. With the advent of cognitive neuroscience, these questions have become empirically tractable. Neuroimaging studies, combined with other methods (such as studies of brain-damaged patients and of the effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation), are revealing the ways in which imagery draws on mechanisms used in other activities, such as perception and motor control. Because of its close relation to these basic processes, imagery is now becoming one of the best understood 'higher' cognitive functions.
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TL;DR: This review examines four broad areas of research within social cognitive neuroscience: (a) understanding others, (b) understanding oneself, (c) controlling oneself, and the processes that occur at the interface of self and others, and highlights two core-processing distinctions that can be neurocognitively identified across all of these domains.
Abstract: Social cognitive neuroscience examines social phenomena and processes using cognitive neuroscience research tools such as neuroimaging and neuropsychology. This review examines four broad areas of research within social cognitive neuroscience: (a) understanding others, (b) understanding oneself, (c) controlling oneself, and (d ) the processes that occur at the interface of self and others. In addition, this review highlights two core-processing distinctions that can be neurocognitively identified across all of these domains. The distinction between automatic versus controlled processes has long been important to social psychological theory and can be dissociated in the neural regions contributing to social cognition. Alternatively, the differentiation between internally-focused processes that focus on one’s own or another’s mental interior and externally-focused processes that focus on one’s own or another’s visible features and actions is a new distinction. This latter distinction emerges from social cognitive neuroscience investigations rather than from existing psychological theories demonstrating that social cognitive neuroscience can both draw on and contribute to social psychological theory.
1,737 citations
Cites background or methods from "Neural foundations of imagery."
...This is analogous to Kosslyn’s earlier finding that visual perception and visual imagery both rely on the same visual code in visual cortex (for review, see Kosslyn et al. 2001)....
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...Other processes involve task conditions and baseline conditions that intuitively seem to compare controlled processes with spontaneous processes that may be more automatic (e.g., reappraisal, affect labeling)....
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TL;DR: It is revealed that patients with primary damage to the hippocampus bilaterally could construct new imagined experiences in response to short verbal cues that outlined a range of simple commonplace scenarios, but were markedly impaired relative to matched control subjects at imagining new experiences.
Abstract: Amnesic patients have a well established deficit in remembering their past experiences. Surprisingly, however, the question as to whether such patients can imagine new experiences has not been formally addressed to our knowledge. We tested whether a group of amnesic patients with primary damage to the hippocampus bilaterally could construct new imagined experiences in response to short verbal cues that outlined a range of simple commonplace scenarios. Our results revealed that patients were markedly impaired relative to matched control subjects at imagining new experiences. Moreover, we identified a possible source for this deficit. The patients' imagined experiences lacked spatial coherence, consisting instead of fragmented images in the absence of a holistic representation of the environmental setting. The hippocampus, therefore, may make a critical contribution to the creation of new experiences by providing the spatial context into which the disparate elements of an experience can be bound. Given how closely imagined experiences match episodic memories, the absence of this function mediated by the hippocampus, may also fundamentally affect the ability to vividly re-experience the past.
1,216 citations
TL;DR: It is shown that orientations held in working memory can be decoded from activity patterns in the human visual cortex, even when overall levels of activity are low, and early visual areas can retain specific information about visual features held inWorking memory, over periods of many seconds when no physical stimulus is present.
Abstract: Visual working memory provides an essential link between perception and higher cognitive functions, allowing for the active maintenance of information about stimuli no longer in view. Research suggests that sustained activity in higher-order prefrontal, parietal, inferotemporal and lateral occipital areas supports visual maintenance, and may account for the limited capacity of working memory to hold up to 3-4 items. Because higher-order areas lack the visual selectivity of early sensory areas, it has remained unclear how observers can remember specific visual features, such as the precise orientation of a grating, with minimal decay in performance over delays of many seconds. One proposal is that sensory areas serve to maintain fine-tuned feature information, but early visual areas show little to no sustained activity over prolonged delays. Here we show that orientations held in working memory can be decoded from activity patterns in the human visual cortex, even when overall levels of activity are low. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and pattern classification methods, we found that activity patterns in visual areas V1-V4 could predict which of two oriented gratings was held in memory with mean accuracy levels upwards of 80%, even in participants whose activity fell to baseline levels after a prolonged delay. These orientation-selective activity patterns were sustained throughout the delay period, evident in individual visual areas, and similar to the responses evoked by unattended, task-irrelevant gratings. Our results demonstrate that early visual areas can retain specific information about visual features held in working memory, over periods of many seconds when no physical stimulus is present.
1,123 citations
TL;DR: The conceptual bases and experimental evidence for this hypothesis suggest a possible mechanism by which intuition and implicit thought might function and explains some of the symptoms that are exhibited by psychiatric patients.
Abstract: The intricate neuronal circuitry of the cerebellum is thought to encode internal models that reproduce the dynamic properties of body parts. These models are essential for controlling the movement of these body parts: they allow the brain to precisely control the movement without the need for sensory feedback. It is thought that the cerebellum might also encode internal models that reproduce the essential properties of mental representations in the cerebral cortex. This hypothesis suggests a possible mechanism by which intuition and implicit thought might function and explains some of the symptoms that are exhibited by psychiatric patients. This article examines the conceptual bases and experimental evidence for this hypothesis.
1,089 citations
Cites background from "Neural foundations of imagery."
...A relatively simple example of a mental model is visual imager...
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TL;DR: A number of key points are discussed, focusing in particular on the importance of distinguishing between temporal and nontemporal factors in analyses of memory and imagination, the nature of differences between remembering the past and imagining the future, the identification of component processes that comprise the default network supporting memory-based simulations, and the finding that this network can couple flexibly with other networks to support complex goal-directed simulations.
1,054 citations
Cites background from "Neural foundations of imagery."
...Scene construction is held to be more complex than ‘‘simple’’ visual imagery for individual objects (Kosslyn et al., 2001) because it relies on binding together disparate types of information into a coherent whole, and likely involves processes mediated by several regions within the default…...
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...…typically focus on the future and engage in extensive autobiographical planning during mind-wandering episodes (Baird et al., 2011; Stawarczyk, et al., 2011), and these effects are most pronounced in individuals with high working memory capacity, a measure of executive processing (Baird et al.,…...
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References
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TL;DR: The data allow us to reject alternative accounts of the function of the fusiform face area (area “FF”) that appeal to visual attention, subordinate-level classification, or general processing of any animate or human forms, demonstrating that this region is selectively involved in the perception of faces.
Abstract: Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we found an area in the fusiform gyrus in 12 of the 15 subjects tested that was significantly more active when the subjects viewed faces than when they viewed assorted common objects. This face activation was used to define a specific region of interest individually for each subject, within which several new tests of face specificity were run. In each of five subjects tested, the predefined candidate “face area” also responded significantly more strongly to passive viewing of (1) intact than scrambled two-tone faces, (2) full front-view face photos than front-view photos of houses, and (in a different set of five subjects) (3) three-quarter-view face photos (with hair concealed) than photos of human hands; it also responded more strongly during (4) a consecutive matching task performed on three-quarter-view faces versus hands. Our technique of running multiple tests applied to the same region defined functionally within individual subjects provides a solution to two common problems in functional imaging: (1) the requirement to correct for multiple statistical comparisons and (2) the inevitable ambiguity in the interpretation of any study in which only two or three conditions are compared. Our data allow us to reject alternative accounts of the function of the fusiform face area (area “FF”) that appeal to visual attention, subordinate-level classification, or general processing of any animate or human forms, demonstrating that this region is selectively involved in the perception of faces.
7,059 citations
TL;DR: The time required to recognize that two perspective drawings portray objects of the same three-dimensional shape is found to be a linearly increasing function of the angular difference in the portrayed orientations of the two objects.
Abstract: The time required to recognize that two perspective drawings portray objects of the same three-dimensional shape is found to be (i) a linearly increasing function of the angular difference in the portrayed orientations of the two objects and (ii) no shorter for differences corresponding simply to a rigid rotation of one of the two-dimensional drawings in its own picture plane than for differences corresponding to a rotation of the three-dimensional object in depth.
5,331 citations
"Neural foundations of imagery." refers methods in this paper
...measured brain activation with fMRI while subjects mentally rotated the three-dimensional multi-armed angular stimuli invented by Shepard and Metzle...
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Book•
01 Jan 19714,272 citations
"Neural foundations of imagery." refers background in this paper
...In spite of the demonstration by Alan Paivio and his colleagues that the use of imagery greatly improves memor...
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Book•
01 Nov 2004TL;DR: The Emotional Brain this article investigates the origins of human emotions and explains that many exist as part of complex neural systems that evolved to enable us to survive, and this may be the key to understanding, even changing, our emotional makeup.
Abstract: What happens in our brains to make us feel fear, love, hate, anger, joy? do we control our emotions, or do they control us? Do animals have emotions? How can traumatic experiences in early childhood influence adult behavior, even though we have no conscious memory of them? In The Emotional Brain, Joseph LeDoux investigates the origins of human emotions and explains that many exist as part of complex neural systems that evolved to enable us to survive. Unlike conscious feelings, emotions originate in the brain at a much deeper level, says LeDoux, a leading authority in the field of neural science and one of the principal researchers profiled in Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence. In this provocative book, LeDoux explores the underlying brain mechanisms responsible for our emotions, mechanisms that are only now being revealed. The Emotional Brain presents some fascinating findings about our familiar yet little understood emotions. For example, our brains can detect danger before we even experience the feeling of being afraid. The brain also begins to initiate physical responses (heart palpitations, sweaty palms, muscle tension) before we become aware of an associated feeling of fear. Conscious feelings, says LeDoux, are somewhat irrelevant to the way the emotional brain works. He points out that emotional responses are hard-wired into the brain's circuitry, but the things that make us emotional are learned through experience. And this may be the key to understanding, even changing, our emotional makeup. Many common psychiatric problems - such as phobias or posttraumatic stress disorder - involve malfunctions in the way emotion systems learn and remember. Understanding how thesemechanisms normally work will have important consequences for how we view ourselves and how we treat emotional disorders.
3,635 citations
"Neural foundations of imagery." refers background in this paper
...Of particular interest, this pattern was seen in the amygdala, which is known to have a key role in certain emotions, especially fear and ange...
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TL;DR: Responsibility specificity, particularly facial expressiveness, supported the view that specific affects have unique patterns of reactivity, and consistency of the dimensional relationships between evaluative judgments and physiological response emphasizes that emotion is fundamentally organized by these motivational parameters.
Abstract: Colored photographic pictures that varied widely across the affective dimensions of valence (pleasant-unpleasant) and arousal (excited-calm) were each viewed for a 6-s period while facial electromyographic (zygomatic and corrugator muscle activity) and visceral (heart rate and skin conductance) reactions were measured. Judgments relating to pleasure, arousal, interest, and emotional state were measured, as was choice viewing time. Significant covariation was obtained between (a) facial expression and affective valence judgments and (b) skin conductance magnitude and arousal ratings. Interest ratings and viewing time were also associated with arousal. Although differences due to the subject's gender and cognitive style were obtained, affective responses were largely independent of the personality factors investigated. Response specificity, particularly facial expressiveness, supported the view that specific affects have unique patterns of reactivity. The consistency of the dimensional relationships between evaluative judgments (i.e., pleasure and arousal) and physiological response, however, emphasizes that emotion is fundamentally organized by these motivational parameters.
3,089 citations
"Neural foundations of imagery." refers background in this paper
...For example, skin conductance increases, as do heart rate and breathing rate, when subjects view pictures of threatening object...
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