Brain mechanisms underlying perceptual causality.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to examine the neural correlates of perceptual causality. Participants were imaged while viewing alternating blocks of causal events in which a ball collides with, and causes movement of another ball, versus non-causal events in which a spatial or a temporal gap precedes the movement of a second ball. There were significantly higher levels of relative activation in the right middle frontal gyrus and the right inferior parietal lobule for causal relative to non-causal events. Furthermore, when the differential effects of spatial and temporal incontiguities were subtracted from the contiguous stimuli, we observed both common (right prefrontal) and unique (right parietal and right temporal) regions of activation as a function of spatial and temporal processing of contiguity, respectively. Taken together, these data provide a means to help determine how the visual system extracts causality from dynamic visual information in the environment using spatial and temporal cues.
Fugelsang
Jonathan A
JA
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, 6207 Moore Hall, Hanover, NH 03755, USA.
Roser
Matthew E
ME
Corballis
Paul M
PM
Gazzaniga
Michael S
MS
Dunbar
Kevin N
KN
D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D010465:Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D012016:Reference Values; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology; D013997:Time Factors; D013998:Time Perception / Q000502:physiology
D010100:Oxygen