Temporal course of vibrotactile imagery

This study examined the temporal courses of imagery processes by having participants imagining vibrotactile sensation as if perceived by the right-hand second finger. The results indicate that the imagery condition elicited a less negative going N400 and then a less positive going P600 than the control condition (perceived without imagining). This is suggestive of a sequential process of retrieving experiences from memory, generating images, and then maintaining the images. Dipole analysis further supports that N400 and P600 (or long latency P300) can be respectively regarded as part of the generic ‘imagery network’ and as modality-specific processes of imagery.