The DOI matches its Crossref record; 49 of the 49 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The Functional Impact of Mental Imagery on Conscious Perception
Open accessAbstract
Mental imagery has been proposed to contribute to a variety of high-level cognitive functions, including memory encoding and retrieval, navigation, spatial planning, and even social communication and language comprehension. However, it is debated whether mental imagery relies on the same sensory representations as perception, and if so, what functional consequences such an overlap might have on perception itself. We report novel evidence that single instances of imagery can have a pronounced facilitatory influence on subsequent conscious perception. Either seeing or imagining a specific pattern could strongly bias which of two competing stimuli reach awareness during binocular rivalry. Effects of imagery and perception were location and orientation specific, accumulated in strength over time, and survived an intervening visual task lasting several seconds prior to presentation of the rivalry display. Interestingly, effects of imagery differed from those of feature-based attention. The results demonstrate that imagery, in the absence of any incoming visual signals, leads to the formation of a short-term sensory trace that can bias future perception, suggesting a means by which high-level processes that support imagination and memory retrieval may shape low-level sensory representations.
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“The idea that mental imagery plays a functional role in facilitating future perception is supported by a recent study that found that mental imagery biases subsequent perception in a binocular rivalry task [35,38], as well as by the correlation between IM performance and representational precision (Figure S2).”
From Shared representations for working memory and mental imagery in early visual cortex (2013) · cites this paper as [38]
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Leptourgos, P. (2018) · theses.fr (ABES) · doi:10.70675/dafacdb1z9072z4ec2z8cebz0ca09b93b7ce · Cited by 3
Does mental imagery support temporally extended agency? Rethinking the experimental approach
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Monzel, M., Digard, B. G., & Zeman, A. Z. (2026) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b978-0-443-29258-3.00044-6 · Cited by 1
Behavioural avoidance to imagined conditioned stimuli in differential fear conditioningPreprint
Mitra, S., Lyons, A. L., Hajiloo, M., & Greening, S. G. (2026) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.6920579
Hou, Y., Pizzuti, A., Knoblauch, K., Vezoli, J., Goebel, R., Vinck, M. A., & Kennedy, H. (2026) · PLoS Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3003906
The Effect of Imagined Brightness on Pupil Size: a Tool to Quantify Aphantasia?
Vanbuckhave, C., Guyader, N., Pasturel, L., Huson, N., Pesci, T., Lœvenbruck, H., & Chauvin, A. (2026) · L’Année psychologique · doi:10.3917/anpsy1.262.0139
Behavioural avoidance to imagined conditioned stimuli in differential fear conditioning
Mitra, S., Lyons, A. L., Hajiloo, M., & Greening, S. G. (2026) · Behavioural Brain Research · doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2026.116537
Does episodic memory require mental imagery? The case of aphantasia
Krempel, R., & Marques, B. S. (2026) · Philosophical Psychology · doi:10.1080/09515089.2026.2743814
Metadata
- Authors
- Pearson, J., Clifford, C. W. G., & Tong, F.
- Affiliations
- The University of Sydney (AU)
- Vanderbilt University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Pearson, Joel
- Venue
- Current Biology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2008-07
- Volume
- 18
- Issue
- 13
- Pages
- 982-986
- ISSN
- 0960-9822 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC2519957
- OpenAlex
- W2170666077
- Cited by
- 409
- References
- 47
- Citations by year
- 2026: 22 · 2025: 27 · 2024: 46 · 2023: 84 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 30 · 2020: 24 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 16 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 15 · 2013: 17 · 2012: 12
- FWCI
- 4.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
- www.elsevier.com/legal/tdmrep-license (tdm)
- www.elsevier.com/open-access/userlicense/1.0/ (vor, 1842 d)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-017 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-037 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-012 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-029 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-004 (stm-asf)
- Locations
- Current Biology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Health and Medical Research Council (457146)
- National Institutes of Health (NEI R01 EY017082, R01 EY14202)
- Australian Research Council
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Multisensory perception and integration
- Keywords
- mental imagery, conscious perception, binocular rivalry, visual awareness, sensory representation, feature-based attention, memory retrieval, perceptual bias
- MeSH terms
- Attention, Humans, Imagination, Orientation, Time Factors, Visual Perception
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