Обзор экспериментальных задач на объектное зрительное воображение и их применимости в психофизиологических исследованиях

Вопросы психологии. 2024. Т. 70. № 6. С. 105–115.

Pechenkova E., Rachinskaya M., Vasilenko V., Иванушко В. П., Мершина Е. А.

Modern psychological accounts of mental imagery distinguish two aspects of visual mental representation: object (representation of pictorial features, such as shape, color, and texture) and spatial (representation of spatial relations and transformations). The hypothetical neural substrates of object and spatial imagery are the ventral and dorsal visual pathways in the brain. To study spatial imagination, many experimental tasks have been developed with the possibility of objective verification of their correctness, and many of them are well adapted for conducting psychophysiological research. In contrast, for the study of object visual imagination, mainly methods of subjective assessment of the brightness of images are used, and only a few tests have been created that allow checking the correctness of such techniques. In this regard, the present review analyzes the experimental tasks on object imagination described in the literature and evaluates their applicability for psychophysiological research. The analysis was conducted on the basis of the following parameters: the nature of the task requirements and the imaginative processes involved in task accomplishment (generation, examination, transformation of mental images); the possibility of objective verification of the representation; the validity of the methods; the reproductive (reliance on past experience) or productive (creative) nature of imagination; reliance on special knowledge and experience, including professional and culturally specific; working memory load; reliance on verbal coding; control for interference from current visual stimulation in the process of imagination; the potential for creating sets of homogeneous tasks, as well as parameterization of tasks and control of task difficulty levels. The review revealed that, at present, no task meets the criteria of an optimal test methodology for studying the brain correlates of object imagery in psychophysiological research and none can claim the status of a methodological gold standard, analogous to mental rotation tasks for spatial imagery.

Keywords: task, задача, репрезентация, representation, mental imagery, neuroimaging, нейровизуализация, зрительное воображение, object imagery, объектное воображение, visual imagery, мысленные образы