The critical role of mental imagery in human emotion: insights from fear-based imagery and aphantasia
The critical role of mental imagery in human emotion: insights from fear-based imagery and aphantasia
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心理意象在人类情感中的关键作用：基于恐惧的意象和失语症的见解
DOI：
10.1098/rspb.2021.0267
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发表时间：
2021
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
J. Pearson
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Marcus Wicken;Rebecca Keogh;J. Pearson
意象的一个拟议功能是通过感官模拟使思想在情感上更加唤起，这有助于规划未来事件和记住过去，但当思想变得势不可挡和适应不良时，例如在焦虑症中，它也会成为障碍。在这里，我们报告了该理论的一项新颖测试，使用没有视觉意象的特殊人群：失语症。在使用失语症的多种方法验证后，我们发现这种情况（但不是一般人群）与阅读和想象恐怖故事时的平线生理反应（皮肤电导水平）相关。重要的是，我们在第二个实验中表明，当感知地观看可怕的图像时，并没有发现这种对引起恐惧的刺激的生理反应的差异。这些数据表明，失语者在想象场景时缺乏生理反应可能是由于他们无法想象，而不是由于一般的情绪或生理抑制。这项工作提供了证据，证明缺乏视觉意象会导致阅读可怕场景时情绪反应减弱，为视觉意象的情绪放大理论提供了证据。
One proposed function of imagery is to make thoughts more emotionally evocative through sensory simulation, which can be helpful both in planning for future events and in remembering the past, but also a hindrance when thoughts become overwhelming and maladaptive, such as in anxiety disorders. Here, we report a novel test of this theory using a special population with no visual imagery: aphantasia. After using multi-method verification of aphantasia, we show that this condition, but not the general population, is associated with a flat-line physiological response (skin conductance levels) to reading and imagining frightening stories. Importantly, we show in a second experiment that this difference in physiological responses to fear-inducing stimuli is not found when perceptually viewing fearful images. These data demonstrate that the aphantasic individuals' lack of a physiological response when imaging scenarios is likely to be driven by their inability to visualize and is not due to a general emotional or physiological dampening. This work provides evidence that a lack of visual imagery results in a dampened emotional response when reading fearful scenarios, providing evidence for the emotional amplification theory of visual imagery.