Brain mechanisms underlying visual perception and visual mental imagery of Chinese pseudo-characters: an event-related potential study.

The aim of this study was to compare spatiotemporal cortical activation patterns that underlie the processing of visual perception and visual mental imagery of Chinese pseudo-characters. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were measured when 14 healthy Chinese college students performed a pseudo-character stroke judgment task. Results showed that visual mental imagery elicited a more negative ERP deflection (N240) than visual perception in the 150- to 250-ms time window after onset of the stimuli. Maps of the difference wave (mental imagery-visual perception) showed strong activity in the right frontal regions. Dipole analysis revealed that the generator of N240 was localized in the right parahippocampal cortex and possibly related to forming a visual mental imagery of the pseudo-character on the basis of initial stimuli identification and classification. Then in the time window between 400 and 600 ms, a greater negativity (N520) in visual mental imagery as compared to visual perception was detected over the right frontocentral scalp regions. Moreover, dipole source analysis of the difference wave (mental imagery-visual perception) indicated that a generator was localized in the right temporal-occipital junction (BA18), which appeared to reflect the cognitive processes of character reconstruction and stroke searching in the visual mental imagery of the pseudo-character. The results showed that the visual mental imagery of Chinese pseudo-characters might be related to the right parahippocampal cortex, and activation of the right temporal-occipital junction was possibly related to accomplishing the stroke judgment task in the visual mental imagery.