Health & Environmental Research Online (HERO)


Print Feedback Export to File
7063907 
Journal Article 
A motion aftereffect from visual imagery of motion 
Winawer, J; Huk, AC; Boroditsky, L; , 
2010 
Yes 
Cognition
ISSN: 0010-0277 
English 
19853246 
Mental imagery is thought to share properties with perception. To what extent does the process of imagining a scene share neural circuits and computational mechanisms with actually perceiving the same scene? Here, we investigated whether mental imagery of motion in a particular direction recruits neural circuits tuned to the same direction of perceptual motion. To address this question we made use of a visual illusion, the motion aftereffect. We found that following prolonged imagery of motion in one direction, people are more likely to perceive real motion test probes as moving in the direction opposite to the direction of motion imagery. The transfer of adaptation from imagined to perceived motion provides evidence that motion imagery and motion perception recruit shared direction-selective neural circuitry. Even in the absence of any visual stimuli, people can selectively recruit specific low-level sensory neurons through mental imagery.