A previous study (Cui et al., 2008) found that people are faster to respond to a word with a congruent background color, and this effect is correlated with imagery vividness (more vivid imagery = stronger congruency effect). ![]() Here you will be asked to identify color words that appear for 32 milliseconds, preceded briefly by a change in background color that may or may not correspond to the word. I am interested to test your ability to ignore background colors while performing a word identification task. The current task is an adapted version of the classic Stroop task, where you are tested on your ability to respond quickly to the word that is shown. The word therefore interferes with your ability to say the color of the font out loud. But because reading is such an automatic process, it is difficult to switch to saying the color of the font instead of reading the word. Even if the word RED is shown in blue font, it is easy to say the word aloud. The word can appear in a congruent font color or another color, and you are asked to either read the word aloud, or say the colour of the font. You may be familiar with the classic "Stroop" phenomenon, where you are presented with a rapid succession of color words (e.g., RED, GREEN, BLUE). If you would like to contribute to the validation, click the link below (4 questionnaires, ~30 minutes). We seek to validate this questionnaire against well-established measures (VVIQ, OSIQ, PSI-Q), so that only a single comprehensive questionnaire will need to be provided to research participants in the future. The MSQ measures multiple senses of mental imagery, as well as spatial, motor, and kinaesthetic imagery and imagery control, effort, and vividness in different situations. In collaboration with Alec Figueroa, we are developing a new mental imagery questionnaire that is meant to capture the full spectrum of mental imagery abilities: the Mental Simulations Questionnaire, or MSQ. Most established questionnaires were created before aphantasia was popularly known - but scientists still use them anyway and try to assess aphantasia based on (often) loaded and confusing questions. Kepecs, 2 April 2021, Science.You may have noticed that a lot of mental imagery questionnaires out there tend to ignore aphantasia. Reference: “Striatal dopamine mediates hallucination-like perception in mice” by K. “Nevertheless, it is starting to become clear that elegantly designed behavioral neuroscience experiments can effectively bridge the gap between complex psychiatric disorders and the neural systems that underpin them.”įor more on this research, read Mice With Hallucination-Like Behaviors Reveal Insights Into Psychotic Illnesses. add to a growing body of literature indicating that beyond striatal dopamine’s function in reinforcement of learning and decision-making, it also plays a key role in the neuromodulation of perception,” writes Miriam Matamales in a related Perspective. “Although much remains to be explored in these circuits, the findings of Schmack et al. ![]() ![]() Then, using dopamine-sensor measurements and pharmacological manipulations, the authors demonstrated a brain circuit link between excessive striatal dopamine and hallucination-like experience in the mice.Īccording to the authors, the novel behavioral approach opens the door for mice to be used as a promising translational model of common psychotic symptoms and, perhaps, therapeutic approaches based on selective modulation of dopamine function. trained mice to respond to both visual and auditory cues, thus creating conditioned hallucination-like responses when the cues were altered. Katharina Schmack and colleagues developed a behavioral model to quantify hallucination-like perception in mice. As a result, understanding how best to effectively treat psychotic disorders remains limited. However, evaluating the dopamine hypothesis of psychosis is particularly challenging, as hallucinatory experiences often rely on self-reporting, an ability that model organisms like mice lack. These findings from a new study could inform novel targeted approaches to treating those with psychotic disorders, like schizophrenia.Īuditory and visual hallucinations - perceptions of hearing or seeing something without observing external sensory stimuli - are central symptoms of psychotic disorders and are thought by some to be caused by excessive dopamine in the brain. KuhlĪn increase of dopamine in the brain’s striatum triggers auditory hallucination-like experiences in mice, revealing a possible causal role for dopamine-dependent neurological circuits in symptoms of psychosis. A computer game that induces mice to experience hallucination-like events could be a key to understanding the neurobiological roots of psychosis, according to a study from Washington University School of Medicine in St.
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