[Brain Activations Reflecting Mental States Induced by the Context of Cartoons]

Although context can be presumed to exert effects on both language and visual information processing, the relevant brain regions have not been elucidated. In the present study, we used silent manga to focus on mental states induced by visual stimuli alone. When participants read manga on a double-page spread with preserved context, significant activation was observed in the bilateral visual cortex and cerebellum. Moreover, the activated region corresponded to lesions associated with hemispatial neglect, when this condition was directly compared with a single-page presentation that impaired context. These results indicate that higher-order visual information processing is enhanced by context.