Dissociating voluntary mental imagery and mental simulation: Evidence from aphantasia.
Intentional visual imagery is a component of numerous aspects of cognition. Related to visual imagery, mental simulation plays a role in language comprehension: modality-specific regions of the brain are activated as an implicit part of people understanding language. The degree of overlap between th...
| Published in: | Memory & Cognition Vol. 53; no. 8; pp. 2674 - 2686 |
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| Main Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Article |
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Springer Nature
Nov2025
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=189934418&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 189934418 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 0090502X MEG jtl: Memory & Cognition issn: 0090502X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Nov2025 vid: 53 iid: 8 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 189934418 10.3758/s13421-025-01731-y ppf: 2674 ppct: 12 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 906KB tig: atl: Dissociating voluntary mental imagery and mental simulation: Evidence from aphantasia. aug: au: Speed, Laura J. Geraerds, Emma M. E. McRae, Ken affil: https://ror.org/00gxyk415 Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands https://ror.org/053sba816 Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands https://ror.org/02grkyz14 Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada su: Netherlands Task performance Psycholinguistics Linguistics Case-control method Imagination Semantics Cognition Phonological awareness Questionnaires Deep brain stimulation Descriptive statistics Chi-squared test Visualization Thematic analysis Experimental design Visual perception Reaction time Data analysis software Speech perception sug: subj: Task performance Psycholinguistics Linguistics Case-control method Imagination Semantics Cognition Netherlands Phonological awareness Questionnaires Deep brain stimulation Descriptive statistics Chi-squared test Visualization Thematic analysis Experimental design Visual perception Reaction time Data analysis software Speech perception keyword: Aphantasia Embodiment Mental imagery Mental simulation Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Psychology Cognitive Sciences Aphantasia Embodiment Mental imagery Mental simulation Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Psychology Cognitive Sciences ab: Intentional visual imagery is a component of numerous aspects of cognition. Related to visual imagery, mental simulation plays a role in language comprehension: modality-specific regions of the brain are activated as an implicit part of people understanding language. The degree of overlap between the processes underlying conscious, voluntary visual imagery versus less conscious, more automatic mental simulation is unclear. We investigated this issue by having aphantasics (people who are unable to experience conscious voluntary visual imagery) and control participants perform a property verification task in which they were asked whether a property is a physical part of an object (e.g., is mane a physical part of a lion?). We manipulated the false trials so that the two words either were associated (semantically related) but did not form an object–part combination (monkey–banana), or were not associated (apple–cloud). Solomon and Barsalou (Memory & Cognition, 32, 244–259, 2004) demonstrated that word association influenced responses when the words in the false trials were not associated, whereas when they were associated, perceptual measures most strongly influenced the results, indicating mental simulation. In the present study, control participants and aphantasics demonstrated similar evidence of the use of both mental simulation and word association when verifying whether the words formed an object–part combination. These results suggest that visual imagery and mental simulation are at least somewhat separable cognitive processes. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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