States of productive and reproductive imagination reflected in the local synchronization of alpha and theta EEG frequencies

• Published in: Human physiology Vol. 43; no. 3; pp. 353 - 357
• Main Authors: Boytsova, J. A., Danko, S. G., Solovjeva, M. L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Moscow Pleiades Publishing 01.05.2017; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Human Physiology; Imagination; Internalization; Life Sciences; Mental task performance; Short Communications; Synchronization; Visual perception; reproductive imagination; psychophysiology; EEG; productive imagination
• ISSN: 0362-1197; 1608-3164
• DOI: 10.1134/S0362119717030033

Healthy subjects ( n = 83) performed a task involving reproductive imagination (remembrances): they were asked to remember and to have an imaginary walk along a well-known road (a real walk, the reproductive imagination state, RIS). Then the subjects performed a task involving productive imagination: they were asked to imagine a city that does not actually exist and to have an imaginary walk through it (a fictitious walk, productive imagination state, PIS). The reference values were measured at rest with the eyes open (REO). Monopolar EEGs were recorded from 19 areas of the scalp surface (10–20 system). An increase in EEG power in the α 2 frequency range during RIS and even more pronounced increase during PIS as compared with REO were considered to reflect the internalization of attention. We also observed multidirectional dynamics of EEG power in the θ and α1 ranges during PIS and RIS as compared with REO, which suggests the dominance of free associative manipulation of visual images in PIS in contrast to RIS, where algorithmically ordered operations with visual images stored in the memory were dominant.