Humans have developed exceptional capacities for tool use, such that everyday interactions with the physical world largely involve manufactured objects (i.e., artifacts). Although research on apraxia has elucidated the cognitive mechanisms underlying tool use, human-object relations extend beyond their functional use to include socio-emotional dimensions that remain comparatively understudied. This critical review addresses two syndromes traditionally studied in separate fields that, when considered together, provide insights into the nature of human-object relations. Apraxia is marked by impaired tool use in the absence of hoarding behavior and is associated with lesions to left temporo-parietal regions that disrupt semantic knowledge or technical reasoning. In contrast, hoarding behavior is characterized by difficulties discarding possessions and excessive attachment to objects without tool-use deficits and is linked to neural alterations in a fronto-temporal network centered on the medial prefrontal and cingulate cortex, overlapping with regions implicated in psychological ownership, reward processing, value attribution, and social categorization. Integrating neuropsychological findings with research on psychological ownership, consumer behavior, and social psychology, this review proposes a three-factor neurocognitive model of human-object relations: a "Knowing" component (i.e., semantic tool knowledge), a "Using" component (i.e., technical reasoning), and an original "Owning" component (i.e., psychological ownership and object value). Evidence further suggests a bidirectional relationship between the latter component and action-related domains (e.g., body-object distance, effort justification, perceived control, kinematic parameters, personal object advantage). Reciprocal connections between the three networks may enable the dynamic regulation of context-dependent decisions. This framework opens new avenues for both clinical and fundamental research.
The feeling that the body belongs to oneself is referred to as the sense of body ownership. Activation of skin nociceptors can contribute to body ownership in a manner similar to tactile input, highlighting multisensory integration between nociception and vision in body ownership. The space surrounding one's own body, termed peripersonal space (PPS), is crucial for interacting with objects, for threat avoidance and self-preservation. While PPS has been extensively studied for touch and vision, less is known about how nociceptive input is processed within PPS and how this relates to body ownership. In two experiments, we investigated whether (1) nociceptive processing shows peripersonal-space-dependent visuonociceptive facilitation (near vs far) and (2) whether this facilitation in perihand space is shaped by changes in body ownership induced by the rubber hand illusion. Participants performed a reaction-time (RT) task responding to painful nociceptive laser stimulation. Experiment 1 showed faster responses when nociceptive stimuli were paired with a visual stimulus presented near rather than far from the body, demonstrating visuonociceptive facilitation within perihand space. Experiment 2 showed faster responses following synchronous than asynchronous visuotactile stimulation, including the predicted advantage for visuonociceptive stimulation near the owned rubber hand. However, this ownership-related facilitation was not selectively confined to near space or to bimodal visuonociceptive stimulation. Together, our findings indicate that nociceptive processing follows PPS-related multisensory principles and is influenced by body ownership. They extend PPS research to the nociceptive domain while indicating that ownership-related facilitation is broader than a selective change in perihand visuonociceptive processing.
BACKGROUND:The approximate number system (ANS) is foundational for mathematical development, but its characteristics and neural mechanisms in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) remain unclear. While mathematical difficulties are common in ASD, whether nonsymbolic numerosity processing deficits contribute and how perceptual factors modulate such processing require investigation. This study evaluated the Weak Central Coherence (WCC) and Executive Dysfunction (EDF) accounts of autism by examining whether perceptual grouping (connectedness) differentially affects ANS processing in children with high-functioning autism (HFA) compared to typically developing (TD) peers. METHODS:Twenty-nine school-age children (14 HFA, 15 TD), matched on age, IQ, and working memory, completed a dot array comparison task during EEG recording. Numerical ratio and perceptual grouping (connectedness) were manipulated to examine effects on behavioral accuracy and ERP components (N1, P2, P3). This manipulation was designed to evaluate competing theoretical accounts of autism-WCC and EDF-by testing whether perceptual grouping cues differentially modulate ANS processing in HFA versus TD children. RESULTS:Behaviorally, HFA children showed lower accuracy than TD children, and accuracy was strongly affected by numerical ratio and connectedness. The complementary grouped binomial GLMM additionally indicated a Group × Ratio interaction, with the between-group difference concentrated in the low-ratio (i.e., greater numerical separation and easier discrimination) condition. Neurally, HFA children exhibited enhanced frontal P2 amplitudes specifically during core numerical processing (without connecting lines), suggesting atypical attentional or cognitive control engagement during numerosity estimation. Perceptual grouping modulated early attentional allocation (N1 amplitudes) similarly across groups. CONCLUSIONS:Children with HFA demonstrate impaired behavioral ANS acuity and atypical neural recruitment during nonsymbolic numerosity processing. These findings indicate ANS processing is affected in HFA at both behavioral and neural levels, though not differentially modulated by perceptual grouping. The absence of a significant Group × Connectedness interaction argues against the WCC account. Rather, the overall pattern of reduced ANS accuracy and enhanced P2 responses in HFA is more consistent with an EDF framework, indicating greater neural recruitment during ANS processing. The results provide evidence for inefficient neural processing underlying numerical difficulties in autistic children, with implications for understanding mathematical learning in this population.
The capacity to retrieve semantic information, particularly related to unique entities, is thought to depend on the anterior temporal lobe (ATL). Evidence underpinning the ATL's characterization as a hub of the semantic network has depended largely on naming tasks requiring lexical retrieval. Consequently, questions about its role in accessing and integrating different types of information (e.g., that Puss in Boots is a charming trickster who wears a cavalier-style hat) remain unanswered. Here, we scanned participants performing a semantic decision task that minimized lexical retrieval containing both unique (famous people and landmarks) and common (everyday objects) probes. We included a sample of patients with left temporal lobe epilepsy (LTLE), whose seizures cause dysfunction in both the temporal neocortex and the hippocampus, a structure that has also been implicated in retrieving information about unique entities. Both groups demonstrated a wide network of regions exhibiting greater activation for unique entity decisions, including the left ATL, bilateral hippocampi, precunei and angular gyri. The LTLE group, who were impaired on the proper noun condition, showed reduced activation compared to the control group in the ipsilateral anterior temporal cortex and hippocampus. Interestingly, higher activation in the left ATL in the LTLE group during the proper noun condition was negatively associated with task performance. Our results support and expand on models of semantic memory by showing that not only the ATL but also the hippocampus and broader parts of the posterior-medial network contribute to retrieval of specific information, even when demands on lexical retrieval are minimized.
Action observation (AO) provides sensory evidence that can engage predictive motor coding, yet how visual uncertainty shapes this process across behaviour and corticospinal excitability (CSE) remains unclear. We combined a behavioural timing task with AO-TMS across two experiments. In Experiment 1 (n = 56), uncertainty was manipulated parametrically through movement naturalness, partial blackout and shape congruence in goal-directed action videos, while participants produced time-locked responses to a defined target event. Precision was indexed by absolute response-time error. In Experiment 2 (n = 20), single-pulse TMS was delivered over left M1 during grasp and release phases of AO scenes selected from an independent cohort. FDI MEPs indexed CSE, with strict pre-EMG screening. Behaviorally, reduced naturalness, added occlusion and incongruent shapes each degraded temporal precision. Neurophysiologically, AO elicited a reliable overall facilitation of CSE relative to baseline, whereas condition-specific modulations associated with uncertainty were small and did not survive multiple-comparison correction. These results indicate that while perceptual uncertainty robustly affects behavioural prediction, corresponding changes in motor resonance are comparatively subtle under the present design. The study provides a reproducible AO-TMS protocol and controlled stimulus set that can support future high-powered tests of how uncertainty shapes predictive motor processes.
Our memory capacity for face identities is extremely impressive: neurotypical human adults can recognise thousands of faces, and novel face identities are automatically encoded every day. Yet, our ability to recognise briefly learned facial identities across novel viewing conditions is poorly documented. Here we combined electroencephalography (EEG) and Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation (FPVS) to provide an implicit objective neural marker of newly learned face identity recognition. Twenty-eight participants were familiarised with images of unknown individuals through brief semantic association and recognition tasks (about 7 min). Participants then viewed streams of natural images of variable unfamiliar face identities (six images per second; 6 Hz), with novel natural images of the previously familiarised identities appearing every fifth image (1.2 Hz). Frequency-domain analysis revealed significant neural response at 1.2 Hz harmonics over occipito-temporal regions, indicating automatic face identity recognition. Critically, this neural response was two times larger (100% increase) for briefly familiarised identities compared to the same images without familiarisation presented as control. These findings demonstrate that robust face identity memories can emerge following only brief familiarisation, and be implicitly measured by FPVS-EEG, offering promises for better assessment and understanding of face identity learning in both healthy individuals and clinical populations.
In human brains, portions of the frontoparietal cortex respond when people reason about the physical world (e.g. track objects, make predictions), and when people engage in a variety of demanding tasks (e.g. working memory, motor inhibition). Here, we use functional neuroimaging to address an open question about whether the same neural resources support both mental functions. Twenty-eight human adults (Mage = 26.5 years; 17 female; 26 right handed) were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they (i) tracked the dynamics of physical objects (vs social agents), and (ii) performed a hard (vs easy) spatial working memory task. For each participant, we identified functional regions of interest (fROIs) that were maximally engaged by each task (physical > social; hard > easy), and studied their engagement in the held out task. We report three pieces of evidence that physical > social fROIs are recruited during the spatial working memory task. First, fROIs maximally engaged during physical (vs social) processing responded just as strongly during hard (vs easy) spatial working memory. Second, people with strong hard > easy responses in one set of regions also tended to have strong physical > social responses in the other set. Third, people with strong hard > easy responses in physical > social fROIs, but not in hard > easy fROIs, performed more accurately on aspatial working memory task in the scanner. These findings suggest that portions of the frontoparietal cortex that preferentially respond to physical (vs social) stimuli are involved in functions beyond physical reasoning: either spatial processing specifically, or attentionally demanding tasks in general.
Time perception is inherently malleable, influenced by both emotional and bodily states. Past research suggests that transient heartbeat-linked interoceptive signals can modulate time perception, with some studies reporting that brief stimuli presented during cardiac systole are perceived as shorter than those during diastole. Here, we used electroencephalography (EEG) across two experiments to examine how such cardiac-phase effects are neurally instantiated, and how they interact with emotional content of the stimuli. In Experiment 1, participants judged the duration of brief neutral visual stimuli (Gabor patches) presented during systole or diastole. We did not observe a reliable group-level behavioural cardiac-phase effect. Despite that, EEG revealed systolic modulation of late visual activity. Crucially, exploratory analyses showed that more negative late cortical activity predicted temporal underestimation only during systole, not diastole. In Experiment 2, we extended this design to emotionally salient stimuli (neutral vs fearful faces). Fearful faces were perceived as shorter in duration and accompanied by enhanced N170-like negativity compared to neutral faces. But this effect was not modulated by cardiac phase, suggesting that emotional salience is a much more powerful driver of duration perception than subtle cardiac fluctuations. Yet, even for faces, enhanced EEG negativity predicted temporal contraction only during systole. Together, these findings reveal that while group-level behavioural cardiac-phase effects are variable, the systole-specific neural mechanism, whereby reduced cortical activity predicts temporal contraction, replicated across both experiments. This suggests that cardiac signals can shape duration perception through transient modulation of cortical processing.
While recent research has revealed earlier neural-based racial categorization of other-race compared to same-race faces in White and Asian samples, neural dynamics underlying racial categorization in Black Africans remain unclear. We recorded electroencephalography (EEG) from Black adults from African countries and residing in China who performed an individual identification task on faces presented in repetition (faces of one racial category shown repeatedly) or alternating (other-race and same-race faces alternated) conditions, respectively. Racial categorization was assessed by quantifying repetition suppression (RS) of neural responses to faces across these two conditions. We found RS for both phase (the P2 amplitudes) and non-phase-locked (theta band, 3-8 Hz) responses to Black (but not Asian or White) faces. This neural profile was consistent with participants' faster responses to Black than White/Asian faces in an explicit racial categorization task. Furthermore, the theta-band RS effect predicted implicit negative attitudes toward Black faces across the participants. These results indicate earlier categorization of same-race (vs. other-race) faces in Black Africans residing in China, contrasting with the other-race priority in race categorization of faces observed in Asian and White samples.
Category Fluency (CF) “item-level” scoring methodologies identify neurocognitive processes that are distinct from those of standard quantitative scoring. One of these accounts for words’ serial recall order (SRO) and calculates the correlation between SRO and item-level complexity to operationalise the tendency to name increasingly complex words. We hypothesised this tendency would be altered in individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), to reflect lexical-semantic organisational decline resulting from potential functional alterations of perirhinal cortex. We expected aMCI individuals to show higher correlational indices than people with no objective cognitive decline (NOCD) due to these trends being more influenced by word count than overall complexity.Sixty aMCI and 54 NOCD individuals, recruited by the TREDEM initiative and representative of the North-East Italian population were administered a 1-min “animals” CF. Four complexity features were scored: frequency, age-of-acquisition, typicality and graphemic length. Individual z-converted correlation coefficients were calculated between SRO and complexity. The two groups were then compared via uncorrected t-tests, age- and education-corrected ANCOVAs, and further ANCOVAs also correcting for quantitative CF scores.aMCI individuals named fewer words, and words of lower and more variable complexity. They also showed a significantly stronger “SRO-graphemic length” correlation. This emerged from the uncorrected models and from the first set of ANCOVAs.Significant differences in lexical-semantic organisation exist in aMCI. Length is a diagnostically relevant feature of Italian words generated as part of CF. In line with cross-linguistic generalisability of findings, potential mechanisms differentiating phonological and orthographic length in languages with transparent/opaque orthographies are discussed.
Ageing is associated with cognitive decline, particularly in working memory (WM), a process linked to dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) functioning. Using continuous Theta Burst Stimulation (cTBS) to induce transient disruption, this study investigated the potential causal role of the left DLPFC in verbal and visuospatial WM performance in healthy older adults using behavioural and EEG measures. Twenty participants completed verbal and visuospatial N-back tasks under baseline, vertex, and left DLPFC stimulation conditions while EEG was recorded. Behavioural analyses showed learning-related improvement in verbal WM following vertex stimulation, whereas evidence for improvement following DLPFC stimulation was inconclusive, suggesting potentially attenuated learning-related effects. In the visuospatial task, evidence for behavioural improvement following vertex stimulation was inconclusive, whereas the DLPFC condition showed accuracy increases consistent with potential learning effects. ERP amplitudes were largely unaffected by stimulation, but several latency effects emerged across both tasks. In the verbal task, DLPFC stimulation was associated with prolonged P200 and P300 latencies, with shorter P200 latencies associated with greater accuracy improvements, suggesting a potential link between early attentional processing and learning-related behavioural change. In the visuospatial task, stimulation-related latency modulation was also observed, although behavioural findings were comparatively less consistent and exploratory analyses only suggested potential associations between N200 and P300 latency changes and behavioural improvement under specific cognitive loads. Together, these findings provide preliminary support for the continued involvement of the left DLPFC in verbal WM processing in older adults, particularly in the temporal coordination of attentional and cognitive control processes.
Illusions have fascinated humans since ancient times, provoking deep questions about the relationship between perception and what is out there. How can we trust our senses if illusions can deceive us so easily? For these reasons, it seems that illusion research should be at the heart of vision research. However, whereas most scholars appreciate the use of, for example, spatial illusions for spatial vision research, many deny that illusions per se are a proper research topic. One argument is that illusions have very little in common conceptually. Here, we would like to argue that, in fact, it is the other way around. We review many studies, the majority of which show only weak correlations between illusion magnitudes, i.e., the shared variance between illusions is low. A participant can be strongly deceived by one illusion and only weakly by a similar one. Hence, investigating one specific spatial illusion may tell us little about spatial vision in general. Still, we will argue that illusions are a great tool for investigating vision in a principled manner because illusion research can help us to understand how the brain solves the ill-posed problems of vision. For this reason, illusion research in itself is a valuable research topic.
Remembering the order of events is a fundamental component of human episodic memory. We investigated neural representations of temporal order using intracranial EEG recordings from 43 participants performing a serial order reconstruction with extensive sampling of frontal and temporal regions. Prior non-human primate neurophysiology and human lesion studies implicate ventral prefrontal cortex in order processing. Building on this work, we examined which cortical regions and burst-based neural dynamics carry reliable serial-position information. We trained classifiers on duration-weighted burst-event time series spanning ripple-range, beta, and gamma frequencies. Burst dynamics in the left pars orbitalis and right frontal pole supported reliable above-chance decoding of serial position across participants. In contrast, hippocampal and parietal regions did not exhibit reliable cross-participant decoding using the same feature set. To situate these findings within broader episodic memory networks, we quantified functional connectivity using centrality metrics and Granger Causality analyses. Pars orbitalis and frontal pole exhibited higher network centrality, consistent with a central role in organizing temporal-order representations, and Granger-based directed effects were interpreted as suggestive of directional influence. By linking serial-position information to region-specific burst-event dynamics, these findings extend current accounts of temporal context coding, including models based on time-sensitive neuronal populations and representational drift. This framework provides a feature- and circuit-level characterization of temporal-order representations in humans and may guide future neuromodulation approaches.
Visually induced kinesthetic illusion (V-KI) — the sensation of movement without actual limb motion — has been shown to enhance brain activity related to voluntary movement and to modulate descending volleys at the spinal level. In this study, we sought to determine whether these effects extend to peripheral muscles and whether the magnitude of this response depends on the strength of virtual body embodiment. Twenty-six healthy participants observed videos of their own hand performing wrist movements under conditions that manipulated spatial alignment and included a single tactile-priming session administered before movement observation. Surface electromyography (sEMG) was recorded from the extensor carpi ulnaris and flexor carpi radialis during V-KI. Tactile priming increased both ownership ratings and illusion intensity. In contrast, condition-level differences in sEMG were modest and not consistently observed across all comparisons. Generalized linear mixed model analysis revealed that sEMG activity was predicted by illusion intensity, with an additional main effect of tactile priming. These findings suggest that V-KI is associated with peripheral muscle activity, and that this effect is closely linked to the intensity of the kinesthetic illusion.
The Müller-Lyer Illusion has been extensively studied in the visual modality and, to a lesser extent, in haptic exploration. However, with the exception of an early descriptive study in the 1930s, no reports have investigated the illusion during passive tactile stimulation. Previous research uses the terms “tactile” and “haptic” interchangeably, despite exclusively examining active exploration. The present study investigated whether the illusion emerges during passive tactile stimulation, and whether its expression differs from that observed during haptic exploration with sensorimotor engagement. Twenty participants completed a manual bisection task of Müller-Lyer stimuli in a haptic exploratory or passive tactile form. Reliable illusory bias was observed in the haptic condition, with midpoint judgments shifted towards the arrow wings. Notably, this effect was mediated by the effector, with stronger bias when responses were made using the right index finger. In the tactile condition, a configuration-dependent effect emerged, in that distally pointing arrows on the forearm elicited significant illusory midpoint shifts, whereas proximal and neutral configurations did not. These findings show that the Müller-Lyer illusion arises under passive tactile stimulation, specifically, we show that contextual geometric cues bias somatosensory spatial perception in the absence of voluntary exploration.
Behavioral and neural changes related to phonetic learning of foreign speech features can emerge rapidly even in adults. However, most phonetic learning studies have relied on pre- and post-training measurements, offering limited insight into learning dynamics. We investigated short-term Mandarin lexical tone learning in adult Finnish speakers naïve to tonal languages using a four-day training program (1 h/day). Pre- and post-training behavioral measures and change detection event-related potentials during passive and active listening were complemented by day-by-day behavioral assessments. Social learning effects were examined by assigning participants to paired (n = 22) or individual (n = 20) training. Training data revealed distinct temporal dynamics: in both groups, sensitivity to tone changes improved early, whereas tone identification accuracy increased gradually. Paired learners showed enhanced sensitivity to tone changes on the first day compared with individual learners, suggesting co-presence-driven attentional facilitation. Both groups improved in discrimination and categorization speed and discrimination accuracy in the pre- and post-tests. Because these tests used acoustically different tone stimuli from a different speaker than in the training, the results indicate transfer of learning across speakers and phonetic contexts. Neural effects emerged in passive listening. In the mismatch negativity time window, responses to both frequent and rare tones shifted in the negative direction after training, reflecting perceptual attunement to trained pitch contours. P3a amplitude increased to rare tones, indicating enhanced automatic orienting to tone changes. These findings demonstrate rapid behavioral gains and experience-dependent neural changes in adult phonetic learning, including early social facilitation and transfer to acoustically different speech materials.
Optimal stopping problems provide a framework for studying decision-making under uncertainty, balancing the trade-off between information sampling and decision commitment. We investigated deviations from normative strategies in human decision-making and examined the neural mechanisms underlying decision commitment versus sampling using electroencephalography (EEG). Forty participants viewed sequences of beads drawn from fictitious urns and attempted to infer the majority bead colour in each urn, while their EEG activity was recorded. After viewing each bead, participants could choose to sample more by drawing another bead (draw choice) or to stop sampling and infer the contents of the urn (urn choice). A Bayesian ideal observer model and parametrised models were used to predict participant behaviour. Participants undersampled relative to the ideal observer, particularly in the more uncertain condition where the proportion of bead colours was close to chance (60/40 or 0.6), with the model better capturing behaviour in the easier 80/20 (0.8) condition. P300 amplitudes showed larger responses for urn choices and a gradient of increasing amplitude as draws approached commitment. Larger frontal ERP responses were also observed under higher uncertainty (0.6 condition). Beta oscillatory activity was stronger for urn choices in the high uncertainty condition, with fast beta (20–30 Hz) activity driving final commitment to a decision. Beta power was further predicted by model-derived action values. By integrating behavioural, computational, and neurophysiological data, this study advances our understanding of active information sampling versus decision commitment in reward-related probabilistic environments.
Remembering personal events typically involves reconstructing our original first-person perspective, often accompanied by a vivid sense of re-experiencing the past. The Angular Gyrus (AnG) has been implicated in both perspective reconstruction and subjective memory experience, yet its specific contribution remains unclear. We investigated the role of the AnG across three studies using a behavioural paradigm in which healthy adults (aged 18-35) encoded a naturalistic video. At retrieval, participants judged whether test images matched their original perspective and rated subjective aspects of the experience, including vividness and re-experiencing. In Study 1 (n = 42), vividness ratings significantly predicted accurate perspective discrimination. In Study 2 (n = 45), offline repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to the AnG significantly enhanced perspective discrimination relative to control stimulation, with richness of visual imagery predicting performance. In Study 3 (n = 28), online rTMS to the AnG produced a non-significant impairment in discrimination, suggesting possible disruption. Re-experiencing ratings predicted successful discrimination of first-person perspective scenes. Together, these studies suggest that the AnG supports memory for encoded perspective and contributes to the subjective aspects of episodic retrieval. The direction of its influence may depend on stimulation timing and its interaction with broader cortical networks involved in self-referential processing and memory reconstruction.
This double-blind randomized cross-over study investigated the effects of perilesional anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (AtDCS) combined with speech-language therapy on sentence comprehension in eight individuals with chronic nonfluent agrammatic aphasia. The behavioral therapy consisted of an intensive comprehension treatment including drilling in sentence-to-picture matching and Mapping Therapy. Each participant underwent both the anodal tDCS and sham stimulation conditions (five received sham first followed by real stimulation, and the remaining three the reverse sequence), with each condition paired with the same behavioral treatment and separated by a four-month washout period. Stimulation was applied over the perilesional area (left BA6) for 20 min during daily 40-min therapy sessions over four consecutive weeks. Sentence comprehension was assessed with the RiComprendo battery and functional communication with the Communicative Effectiveness Index (CETI). Data were analyzed using paired t-tests, Bayesian analyses, and linear mixed-effects models to control for baseline performance and individual variability. Both stimulation conditions produced significant pre-to-post improvements in sentence comprehension, particularly for syntactically complex structures such as passives and center-embedded object relatives. However, gains were overall greater following AtDCS, as reflected in larger effect sizes, stronger Bayes factors, and a significant treatment effect in the mixed-effects models. Only the AtDCS condition yielded significant improvements in self-perceived comprehension abilities on the CETI. These findings suggest that AtDCS over perilesional cortical areas may boost the effects of traditional language therapy on sentence comprehension, supporting its feasibility and potential as an adjuvant intervention in post-stroke aphasia rehabilitation.
Mental imagery is theorised to support important mental simulation processes, yet there remains little direct evidence of its functional impact on affective, moral, and motivation outcomes. This study examined whether the ability to generate visual mental imagery amplifies “as-if-real” responding to a mentally constructed harm event. Using a modified laboratory harm provocation paradigm, Aphantasics (individuals with no or minimal visual imagery; N = 32) and Visualisers (those with normal to high imagery ability; N = 48) were asked to write down the sentence “I hope [name of a loved one] is in a car accident”, followed by instructed mental simulation of the event. The Aphantasic group reported significantly lower anxiety, guilt, moral violation, sense of responsibility and control, as well as urge to neutralise (cancel) the effects the sentence relative to the Visualiser group, but similar perceptions of event likelihood and severity. While Aphantasics were also less likely to engage in neutralisation behaviour than Visualisers, this effect reflected baseline group differences in age and thought-action fusion beliefs. Mental imagery ratings and episodic detail reports confirmed that visualisers generated more vivid and detailed representations of the imagined event. These findings support emulation theory by demonstrating that scene-based mental imagery makes mental events more real, eliciting greater “as-if-real” response. Results have implications for understanding the cognitive mechanisms involved in the development of obsessions and obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and suggest that aphantasia may confer reduced vulnerability to such responses.
