Thompson, WilliamSlotnick, Scott D.Burrage, Marie S.Kosslyn, Stephen2012-12-182009Thompson, William L., Scott D. Slotnick, Marie S. Burrage, and Stephen M. Kosslyn. 2009. Two forms of spatial imagery: neuroimaging evidence. Psychological Science 20(10): 1245-53.0956-7976http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:10059023Spatial imagery may be useful in such tasks as interpreting graphs and solving geometry problems, and even in performing surgery. This study provides evidence that spatial imagery is not a single faculty; rather, visualizing spatial location and mentally transforming location rely on distinct neural networks. Using 3-T functional magnetic resonance imaging, we tested 16 participants (8 male, 8 female) in each of two spatial imagery tasks--one that required visualizing location and one that required mentally rotating stimuli. The same stimuli were used in the two tasks. The location-based task engendered more activation near the occipito-parietal sulcus, medial posterior cingulate, and precuneus, whereas the transformation task engendered more activation in superior portions of the parietal lobe and in the postcentral gyrus. These differences in activation provide evidence that there are at least two different types of spatial imagery.en-USadolescentadultbrain anatomybrain histologybrain physiologybrain mapping methodscuesfemaleshumansimaginationphysiology of imaginationmagnetic resonance imagingbrain mappingmalepattern recognitionvisual pattern recognitionphysiology of visual pattern recognitionphotic stimulationphotic stimulation methodsspace perceptionphysiology of space perceptionstudentsstudents psychologytask performancetask analysisyoung adultJournal Article2012-12-1810.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02440.x