A Picture Does Not Automatically Activate A Thousand Words
- Date:
- August 19, 2005
- Source:
- Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
- Summary:
- A new study finds that there may be a difference between how our brains call up pictures and words.
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A paper published in the recent issue of Psychophysiology describesdifferences in the brain's response (event-related potentials, or"ERPs") to pictures and words that describe the same object. In twostudies, the authors evaluated how the brain reacts differently to apicture of an object or its name when people were looking for eitherthe picture or the name in a visual display.
University students saw pictures of five simple objects and wordscorresponding to their names. Participants were instructed to keep asilent mental count of the appearance of a specific target. Forinstance, in the first study, they looked for the word "globe." Itsappearance on screen created a noticeable brain response. "We foundthat the appearance of the word 'globe' elicited a large electricalresponse called the P300, a positive-going ERP that occurs about300-500 ms after the presentation of a target, " author Todd Watsonstates.
Although it was not a target, the picture of the globe elicited asimilar (although less pronounced) electrical response. In a secondstudy, the specified object was the picture of a globe. Again, theauthors found that a picture of the globe elicited a large P300.However unlike the first experiment, the other version of the object --the word "globe" -- failed to elicit a prominent electrical response.
These intriguing results suggest that whereas a word mayautomatically activate a mental image of the same object (e.g., aglobe), a picture does not necessarily activate its verbal name. Inturn, these data suggest the possibility that processing images andwords may involve distinct brain circuits that can, but do not always,"talk to" one another. These techniques could help us to understand howour brains respond differently to visual or verbal codes that describethe objects in the world around us, as well as how our brains evaluatessimilarity between different objects or concepts.
This study is published in the current issue of Psychophysiology.
Psychophysiology reports on new theoretical, empirical andmethodological advances in: psychology and psychiatry, cognitivescience, cognitive and affective neuroscience, social science, healthscience and behavioral medicine, and biomedical engineering. It ispublished on behalf of the Society for Psychophysiological Research.
Todd Watson is a Ph.D. candidate in Biopsychology at StonyBrook University. He has been published in numerous publications.
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