Aesthetic experiences across visual perception and mental imagery: Behaviorally indistinguishable, neurally distinct

IF 4.6 2区综合性期刊 Q1 MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES

iScience Pub Date : 2025-05-05 DOI:10.1016/j.isci.2025.112588

Maximilian Kathofer , Claus Lamm , Helmut Leder , Julia Sophia Crone

{"title":"Aesthetic experiences across visual perception and mental imagery: Behaviorally indistinguishable, neurally distinct","authors":"Maximilian Kathofer , Claus Lamm , Helmut Leder , Julia Sophia Crone","doi":"10.1016/j.isci.2025.112588","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Studies suggest that vivid mental imagery can blur the boundaries between reality and imagination in simple detection tasks by eliciting similar neural patterns. The question arises as to whether aesthetic experiences can similarly emerge through imagery or whether these complex experiences necessitate direct input into the sensory system. Alternating between visually perceiving and reimagining encountered stimuli, 34 participants rated faces and artworks across aesthetic dimensions. While slightly less potent, imagery is equally sufficient in evoking aesthetic experiences, and for highly vivid imaginations, evoked experiences even become behaviorally indistinguishable across conditions. Yet, representational similarity analysis reveals distinct neural patterns across conditions as the brain mainly encodes stimulus modality, even in areas canonically associated with aesthetic processing. Thus, although evoked experiences might be behaviorally identical across modalities during highly vivid trials, neural patterns differ substantially due to differences in modality, as evoked experiences are only marginally encoded.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":342,"journal":{"name":"iScience","volume":"28 6","pages":"Article 112588"},"PeriodicalIF":4.6000,"publicationDate":"2025-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"iScience","FirstCategoryId":"103","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004225008491","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Studies suggest that vivid mental imagery can blur the boundaries between reality and imagination in simple detection tasks by eliciting similar neural patterns. The question arises as to whether aesthetic experiences can similarly emerge through imagery or whether these complex experiences necessitate direct input into the sensory system. Alternating between visually perceiving and reimagining encountered stimuli, 34 participants rated faces and artworks across aesthetic dimensions. While slightly less potent, imagery is equally sufficient in evoking aesthetic experiences, and for highly vivid imaginations, evoked experiences even become behaviorally indistinguishable across conditions. Yet, representational similarity analysis reveals distinct neural patterns across conditions as the brain mainly encodes stimulus modality, even in areas canonically associated with aesthetic processing. Thus, although evoked experiences might be behaviorally identical across modalities during highly vivid trials, neural patterns differ substantially due to differences in modality, as evoked experiences are only marginally encoded.

查看原文本刊更多论文

视觉感知和心理意象的审美体验：行为上不可区分，神经上不同

研究表明，在简单的检测任务中，生动的心理意象可以通过引发相似的神经模式来模糊现实与想象之间的界限。问题是审美体验是否同样可以通过意象出现，或者这些复杂的体验是否需要直接输入感官系统。在视觉感知和重新想象所遇到的刺激之间交替进行，34名参与者在审美维度上对面孔和艺术品进行评分。虽然效果稍差，但图像在唤起审美体验方面同样足够，对于高度生动的想象，所唤起的体验甚至在不同条件下变得难以区分。然而，表征相似性分析揭示了不同条件下不同的神经模式，因为大脑主要编码刺激模式，即使是在通常与审美处理相关的区域。因此，尽管在高度生动的实验中，被唤起的经验在行为上可能是相同的，但由于模态的差异，神经模式存在很大差异，因为被唤起的经验只被少量编码。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

iScience Multidisciplinary-Multidisciplinary

CiteScore

7.20

自引率

1.70%

发文量

1972

审稿时长

6 weeks

期刊介绍： Science has many big remaining questions. To address them, we will need to work collaboratively and across disciplines. The goal of iScience is to help fuel that type of interdisciplinary thinking. iScience is a new open-access journal from Cell Press that provides a platform for original research in the life, physical, and earth sciences. The primary criterion for publication in iScience is a significant contribution to a relevant field combined with robust results and underlying methodology. The advances appearing in iScience include both fundamental and applied investigations across this interdisciplinary range of topic areas. To support transparency in scientific investigation, we are happy to consider replication studies and papers that describe negative results. We know you want your work to be published quickly and to be widely visible within your community and beyond. With the strong international reputation of Cell Press behind it, publication in iScience will help your work garner the attention and recognition it merits. Like all Cell Press journals, iScience prioritizes rapid publication. Our editorial team pays special attention to high-quality author service and to efficient, clear-cut decisions based on the information available within the manuscript. iScience taps into the expertise across Cell Press journals and selected partners to inform our editorial decisions and help publish your science in a timely and seamless way.