Feeling with the mind's eye: the role of visual imagery in tactile perception.
Cross-modal interactions are characteristic of normal perception. In this article, we discuss our work on cross-modal interactions between touch and vision in normally sighted humans. A region of extrastriate visual cortex, near the parieto-occipital fissure, is not only active during but also necessary for tactile discrimination of grating orientation (but not spatial frequency). This is consistent with a role for visual imagery in certain aspects of tactile perception. These findings have implications for the interpretation of visual cortical involvement in Braille reading by the blind.
Sathian
K
K
Department of Neurology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA. ksathia@emory.edu
Zangaladze
A
A
D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D009949:Orientation; D014055:Tomography, Emission-Computed; D014110:Touch / Q000502:physiology*; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*