Читать книгу The Behavior of Animals - Группа авторов - Страница 59

Studies from neuroimaging in humans suggest that during visual imagination of an object, a “protocol” of the neurons operating during visual perception of that object is reactivated. Ishai and Sagi (1995) discuss common mechanisms of visual perception and visual imagination. This explains, for example, why humans with lesions in an area corresponding to V4 are unable both to recognize and imagine colors.

A different phenomenon of imagination is sensing a stimulus that actually affects another person. You see a child touching a hot stove and you will feel pain, caused by activity in appropriate structures of your brain. This kind of compassion is mediated by so-called mirror neurons (for details see Chapter 5).