An analysis of functional responses to different types of human vocalizations revealed that the SMA and parietal sites that predict imagery are also modulated by sound type. These results, suggesting a central role of the left hemisphere in auditory imagery, demonstrate that brain asymmetries can drive strong lateral biases in mental imagery.Īuditory hallucinations Auditory imagery Hemispheric asymmetry Right ear advantage (REA).Ĭopyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. Vividness of auditory imagery correlated with gray matter volume in the supplementary motor area (SMA), parietal cortex, medial superior frontal gyrus, and middle frontal gyrus. In Experiments 5-8 - by means of the same paradigm - it was also ascertained that the right-ear bias for hearing imagined voices depends just on auditory attention mechanisms, as biases due to other factors (i.e., lateralized movements) were controlled. In Experiments 1-4 we find that right-handed participants required to imagine hearing a voice or a sound unilaterally show a strong population bias to localize the self-generated auditory image at their right ear, likely the result of left-hemispheric dominance in auditory processing.
The appearance of this volume is an important event in the history of psychology. The laterality of auditory imagery, however, has received little attention, despite its potential relevance for the understanding of auditory hallucinations and related phenomena. But through a quirk of history, auditory imagery has remained invisible (or should I say inaudible) in the cognitive psychology catalogue, while visual imagery has inspired ingenious experimental research and provocative theoretical controversies.
An advantage of the right ear (REA) in auditory processing (especially for verbal content) has been firmly established in decades of behavioral, electrophysiological and neuroimaging research.
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