What do you have in mind? : ERP markers of visual and auditory imagery

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the psychophysiological markers of imagery processes through EEG/ERP recordings. Visual and auditory stimuli representing 10 different semantic categories were shown to 30 healthy participants. After a given interval and prompted by a light signal, participants were asked to activate a mental image corresponding to the semantic category for recording synchronized electrical potentials. Unprecedented electrophysiological markers of imagination were recorded in the absence of sensory stimulation. The following peaks were identified at specific scalp sites and latencies, during imagination of infants (centroparietal positivity, CPP, and late CPP), human faces (anterior negativity, AN), animals (anterior positivity, AP), music (P300-like), speech (N400-like), affective vocalizations (P2-like) and sensory (visual vs auditory) modality (PN300). Overall, perception and imagery conditions shared some common electro/cortical markers, but during imagery the category-dependent modulation of ERPs was long latency and more anterior, with respect to the perceptual condition. These ERP markers might be precious tools for BCI systems (pattern recognition, classification, or A.I. algorithms) applied to patients affected by consciousness disorders (e.g., in a vegetative or comatose state) or locked-in-patients (e.g., spinal or SLA patients).