Orientation-specific aftereffects to mentally generated lines

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Visual Perception
• Neuroscience

Background:

• A direct tilt aftereffect (TAE) occurs when viewing tilted lines alters subsequent perception.
• Previous fMRI studies suggest mental imagery, like imagining lines, can induce a direct TAE, implying perception-like coding in mental images.
• Orientation-selective neurons in the extrastriate cortex are implicated in these effects.

Purpose of the Study:

• To replicate and strengthen evidence for perception-like coding during orientation imagination.
• To investigate whether mental imagery can induce indirect TAE and contrast-threshold elevation aftereffects.
• To clarify the relationship between mental imagery and visual perception resource utilization.

Main Methods:

• Replication of direct TAE induced by line imagination with design variations to control for perceptual confounds.
• Attempting to induce indirect TAE and orientation-selective contrast-threshold elevation aftereffects via mental imagery.
• Comparing effects of mental imagery with those of direct visual stimulation.

Main Results:

• A robust direct TAE was consistently replicated through both mental imagery and visual stimulation.
• No indirect TAE was induced by mental imagery; however, a perception bias in the opposite direction was observed.
• Mental imagery of lines did not induce an orientation-selective contrast-threshold elevation aftereffect.

Conclusions:

• Mental imagery significantly influences visual perception, indicating shared resource utilization.
• While mental imagery uses perceptual resources, its utilization pattern differs from that of active visual perception.
• The findings support the concept of perception-like coding in mental imagery, particularly for orientation-based aftereffects.