Abstract
Clouds and inkblots often compellingly resemble something else - faces, animals, or other identifiable objects. Here, we investigated illusions of meaning produced by novel visual shapes. Individuals found some shapes meaningful and others meaningless, with considerable variability among individuals in these subjective categorizations. Repetition for shapes endorsed as meaningful produced conceptual priming in a priming test along with concurrent activity reductions in cortical regions associated with conceptual processing of real objects. Subjectively meaningless shapes elicited robust activity in the same brain areas, but activity was not influenced by repetition. Thus, all shapes were conceptually evaluated, but stable conceptual representations supported neural priming for meaningful shapes only. During a recognition memory test, performance was associated with increased frontoparietal activity, regardless of meaningfulness. In contrast, neural conceptual priming effects for meaningful shapes occurred during both priming and recognition testing. These different patterns of brain activation as a function of stimulus repetition, type of memory test, and subjective meaningfulness underscore the distinctive neural bases of conceptual fluency versus episodic memory retrieval. Finding meaning in ambiguous stimuli appears to depend on conceptual evaluation and cortical processing events similar to those typically observed for known objects. To the brain, the vaguely Elvis-like potato chip truly can provide a substitute for the King himself.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2354-2364 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Cerebral Cortex |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue number | 10 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Oct 1 2012 |
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Keywords
- conceptual priming
- explicit memory
- perceptual learning
- perceptual recognition
- semantic priming
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
Cite this
The potato chip really does look like elvis! Neural hallmarks of conceptual processing associated with finding novel shapes subjectively meaningful. / Voss, Joel L.; Federmeier, Kara D.; Paller, Ken A.
In: Cerebral Cortex, Vol. 22, No. 10, 01.10.2012, p. 2354-2364.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - The potato chip really does look like elvis! Neural hallmarks of conceptual processing associated with finding novel shapes subjectively meaningful
AU - Voss, Joel L.
AU - Federmeier, Kara D.
AU - Paller, Ken A.
PY - 2012/10/1
Y1 - 2012/10/1
N2 - Clouds and inkblots often compellingly resemble something else - faces, animals, or other identifiable objects. Here, we investigated illusions of meaning produced by novel visual shapes. Individuals found some shapes meaningful and others meaningless, with considerable variability among individuals in these subjective categorizations. Repetition for shapes endorsed as meaningful produced conceptual priming in a priming test along with concurrent activity reductions in cortical regions associated with conceptual processing of real objects. Subjectively meaningless shapes elicited robust activity in the same brain areas, but activity was not influenced by repetition. Thus, all shapes were conceptually evaluated, but stable conceptual representations supported neural priming for meaningful shapes only. During a recognition memory test, performance was associated with increased frontoparietal activity, regardless of meaningfulness. In contrast, neural conceptual priming effects for meaningful shapes occurred during both priming and recognition testing. These different patterns of brain activation as a function of stimulus repetition, type of memory test, and subjective meaningfulness underscore the distinctive neural bases of conceptual fluency versus episodic memory retrieval. Finding meaning in ambiguous stimuli appears to depend on conceptual evaluation and cortical processing events similar to those typically observed for known objects. To the brain, the vaguely Elvis-like potato chip truly can provide a substitute for the King himself.
AB - Clouds and inkblots often compellingly resemble something else - faces, animals, or other identifiable objects. Here, we investigated illusions of meaning produced by novel visual shapes. Individuals found some shapes meaningful and others meaningless, with considerable variability among individuals in these subjective categorizations. Repetition for shapes endorsed as meaningful produced conceptual priming in a priming test along with concurrent activity reductions in cortical regions associated with conceptual processing of real objects. Subjectively meaningless shapes elicited robust activity in the same brain areas, but activity was not influenced by repetition. Thus, all shapes were conceptually evaluated, but stable conceptual representations supported neural priming for meaningful shapes only. During a recognition memory test, performance was associated with increased frontoparietal activity, regardless of meaningfulness. In contrast, neural conceptual priming effects for meaningful shapes occurred during both priming and recognition testing. These different patterns of brain activation as a function of stimulus repetition, type of memory test, and subjective meaningfulness underscore the distinctive neural bases of conceptual fluency versus episodic memory retrieval. Finding meaning in ambiguous stimuli appears to depend on conceptual evaluation and cortical processing events similar to those typically observed for known objects. To the brain, the vaguely Elvis-like potato chip truly can provide a substitute for the King himself.
KW - conceptual priming
KW - explicit memory
KW - perceptual learning
KW - perceptual recognition
KW - semantic priming
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84866057838&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84866057838&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/cercor/bhr315
DO - 10.1093/cercor/bhr315
M3 - Article
C2 - 22079921
AN - SCOPUS:84866057838
VL - 22
SP - 2354
EP - 2364
JO - Cerebral Cortex
JF - Cerebral Cortex
SN - 1047-3211
IS - 10
ER -