Does our imagination affect how we perceive the world? The effect of mental imagery on visual perception of objects
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2025-03-18
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en
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Abstract
Many of us have experienced distraction from non-task-related objects or scenes while engaging with our surroundings. While such distractions are often linked to external stimuli, internal processes like mental imagery may also interfere with our ability to perceive our surroundings. In a series of three studies, we investigated whether mental imagery interferes with visual object processing and whether this interference is related to the similarity between imagined and visually presented objects. Object similarity was assessed using deep neural network (DNN) models and ventral temporal cortex (VTC) activity patterns. Participants imagined and perceived these objects. They then indicated the location (Experiments 1 and 2) and orientation (Experiment 3) of the perceived stimulus, as well as the vividness of their mental imagery. To examine whether mental imagery interferes with visual object processing and whether this is related to the similarity between imagined and visually presented objects, behavioural accuracies for each imagined and visually presented object combination were correlated with DNN and VTC object similarity output. Across all experiments, we found no evidence that mental imagery interfered with visual object processing: participants performed equally well when imagining objects that were more similar versus less similar to the ones they perceived. For the second experiment, however, more vivid imagery was associated with greater task interference across participants. We propose that strategies such as attention, shielding, and subspacing may generally help prevent interference between mental imagery and visual object processing. However, these strategies may be less effective when imagery is highly vivid, resulting in interference of mental imagery on visual object processing.
Keywords: Mental Imagery, Visual Object Processing, Interference, Object Similarity
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Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen