Visual mental imagery induces retinotopically organized activation of early visual areas
Abstract
There is a long-standing debate as to whether visual mental imagery relies entirely on symbolic (language-like) representations or also relies on depictive (picture-like) representations. We sought to discover whether visual mental imagery could evoke cortical activity with precise visual field topography (retinotopy). Participants received three conditions: the perception condition consisted of a standard retinotopic mapping procedure, where two flickering checkerboard wedges rotated around a central fixation point. The imagery and attention conditions consisted of the same stimulus, but only the outer arcs of the wedges were visible. During imagery, participants mentally reproduced the stimulus wedges, using the stimulus arcs as a guide. The attention condition required either distributed attention or focused attention to where the stimulus wedges would have been. Event-related analysis revealed that the imagery (greater than either form of attention) retinotopic maps were similar to the perception maps. Moreover, blocked analysis revealed similar perception and imagery effects in human motion processing region MT+. These results support the depictive view of visual mental imagery.
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The results are unlikely to be caused by the same neural mechanisms as those suggested in earlier studies on visual mental imagery.
“The successful classification in experiments 1 and 2 was driven by differential patterns of deactivation rather than activation, and, thus, our results are unlikely to be caused by the same neural mechanisms as those suggested in earlier studies on visual mental imagery [17, 18].”
From Decoding sound and imagery content in early visual cortex (2014) · cites this paper as [17]
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- Authors
- Slotnick, S. D., Thompson, W. L., & Kosslyn, S. M.
- Affiliations
- Boston College (US)
- Corresponding author
- Slotnick, Scott D.
- Venue
- Cerebral Cortex
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2005-02-02
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 1570-1583
- ISSN
- 1047-3211 (ISSN-L)
- 1460-2199
- OpenAlex
- W2129849327
- Cited by
- 458
- References
- 54
- Citations by year
- 2026: 16 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 48 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 47 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 31 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 20 · 2014: 13 · 2013: 17 · 2012: 24
- FWCI
- 5.63
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cerebral Cortex (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH060734, 5 R01 MH60734-03)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Keywords
- visual imagery, retinotopic mapping, symbolic representation, early visual cortex, MT, motion processing, visual attention, visual perception, event-related potentials
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Attention, Brain Mapping, Cerebrovascular Circulation, Data Interpretation, Statistical, Evoked Potentials, Visual, Female, Fixation, Ocular, Humans, Imagination, Functional Laterality, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Photic Stimulation, Psychomotor Performance, Reaction Time, Retina, Visual Cortex, Visual Perception, Signal Detection, Psychological
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