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Left Prefrontal Cortex Supports the Recognition of Meaningful Patterns in Ambiguous Stimuli
Processing of ambiguous visual stimuli has been associated with an increased activation of the left lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) in neuroimaging studies. Nevertheless, the functional role of prefrontal activity in this process is not fully understood. In this experiment we asked participants to e...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7050495/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32153364 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.00152 |
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author | Bartel, Grégory Marko, Martin Rameses, Imani Lamm, Claus Riečanský, Igor |
author_facet | Bartel, Grégory Marko, Martin Rameses, Imani Lamm, Claus Riečanský, Igor |
author_sort | Bartel, Grégory |
collection | PubMed |
description | Processing of ambiguous visual stimuli has been associated with an increased activation of the left lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) in neuroimaging studies. Nevertheless, the functional role of prefrontal activity in this process is not fully understood. In this experiment we asked participants to evaluate ambiguous inkblots from the Rorschach test, while stimulating the left lateral PFC using excitatory anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). In addition, visual insight ability was assessed as a control measure requiring visual and conceptual restructuring and convergent thinking rather than divergent idea generation employed to interpret the equivocal Rorschach inkblots. Using a randomized double-blind design, we demonstrated that anodal tDCS increased the number of meaningful patterns recognized in the inkblots but had no significant effect on visual insight. These findings support the role of left lateral PFC in the processing of ambiguous visual information and object recognition. More generally, we discuss that the PFC may be involved in the mechanisms supporting the activation of stored visual and semantic representations in order to compensate for less informative bottom-up inputs and thus facilitate flexible cognition and idea generation. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7050495 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-70504952020-03-09 Left Prefrontal Cortex Supports the Recognition of Meaningful Patterns in Ambiguous Stimuli Bartel, Grégory Marko, Martin Rameses, Imani Lamm, Claus Riečanský, Igor Front Neurosci Neuroscience Processing of ambiguous visual stimuli has been associated with an increased activation of the left lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) in neuroimaging studies. Nevertheless, the functional role of prefrontal activity in this process is not fully understood. In this experiment we asked participants to evaluate ambiguous inkblots from the Rorschach test, while stimulating the left lateral PFC using excitatory anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). In addition, visual insight ability was assessed as a control measure requiring visual and conceptual restructuring and convergent thinking rather than divergent idea generation employed to interpret the equivocal Rorschach inkblots. Using a randomized double-blind design, we demonstrated that anodal tDCS increased the number of meaningful patterns recognized in the inkblots but had no significant effect on visual insight. These findings support the role of left lateral PFC in the processing of ambiguous visual information and object recognition. More generally, we discuss that the PFC may be involved in the mechanisms supporting the activation of stored visual and semantic representations in order to compensate for less informative bottom-up inputs and thus facilitate flexible cognition and idea generation. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-02-21 /pmc/articles/PMC7050495/ /pubmed/32153364 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.00152 Text en Copyright © 2020 Bartel, Marko, Rameses, Lamm and Riečanský. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Neuroscience Bartel, Grégory Marko, Martin Rameses, Imani Lamm, Claus Riečanský, Igor Left Prefrontal Cortex Supports the Recognition of Meaningful Patterns in Ambiguous Stimuli |
title | Left Prefrontal Cortex Supports the Recognition of Meaningful Patterns in Ambiguous Stimuli |
title_full | Left Prefrontal Cortex Supports the Recognition of Meaningful Patterns in Ambiguous Stimuli |
title_fullStr | Left Prefrontal Cortex Supports the Recognition of Meaningful Patterns in Ambiguous Stimuli |
title_full_unstemmed | Left Prefrontal Cortex Supports the Recognition of Meaningful Patterns in Ambiguous Stimuli |
title_short | Left Prefrontal Cortex Supports the Recognition of Meaningful Patterns in Ambiguous Stimuli |
title_sort | left prefrontal cortex supports the recognition of meaningful patterns in ambiguous stimuli |
topic | Neuroscience |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7050495/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32153364 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.00152 |
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