Mental Imagery of Representation beyond the Equivalence of Perception by Emphasizing Methods FMRI

Authors

1 Neuroscience Department, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, PHD student of cognitive neuroscience in Psychology ICSS, Tehran, Iran

2 Psychology Department, Faculty of Psychology, Tehran University, Tehran, Iran

3 Psychology Department, Faculty of Psychology, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran

4 Neuroscience Department, Faculty of Neuroscience, Iran University, Tehran, Iran

5 Nursing Department, Faculty of Nursing, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

6 Department of Medical, MS in Human Genetic, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Introduction:  Knowledge  representation  includes  different  methods  through which our mind creates mental structures, the representation of what we know about the world out of our mind. In mental imagery, we create similar mental structures which represent the things which our sensory organs haven’t sensed. Some studies relating  to  the  blind  subjects  and  some  applied  studies  on  rehabilitation  have highlighted the importance of mental imagery for the cognitive psychologists. Aim of  this  study  is  to  investigate  the  mental  imagery  with  FMRI  studies  on neural structures in common tasks with the normal consciousness range for comparison of neural functional equivalence beyond the neural perception level.
Methods and Material: The research was conducted with key words of mental imagery,  representation,  FMRI  in  pubmed,  google  Scholar  and  Science  direct databases and SID database, without time limitation and in both Persian and English languages.
Results: 70 original research papers were obtained among which 5 papers were reviewed  finally  after  the  evaluation  of  scientific  validity  for  responding  to  the research  questions.  Analysis  of  the  final  papers  showed  that  knowledge representation  through  mental  imagery  was  beyond  the  perceptional  neural functional equivalent.
Conclusion: Common neural bases can be searched by designing specific tests in different consciousness levels such as hypnotism, mental imagery, and normal awareness and with FMRI expanding functions.

Keywords