A study from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden reveals that what we imagine in mind may affect the way we experience the world. Our real perception changes as we imagine being 'hearing' or 'seeing' something in our minds. The study, published in the journal Current Biology, highlights the classic question in the world of psychology and neurology about how our brain combines information from different senses.

"We often think about the things we imagine and those things we consider obvious as integral," says Christopher Berger, a doctoral student in the Department of Neurosciences and as lead author in the study, "However, this study shows that the imagination we at a certain sound or shape can change the way we see the world around us in a way that is really the same as hearing the sound or seeing the shape. In particular, we find that our imagination of 'hearing' can change what we see, and our imagination of 'seeing' can change what we actually hear. "

Example of Imagination:
A participant in the experiment perceives the two objects that collide with each other even though the two objects are actually each other.

This study consists of a series of experiments that use illusions in which sensory information from one sense of change alters or distorts one's perception of another's senses. Ninety-six volunteers participated in total.

In the first experiment, the participants experienced the illusion that the two intercepting objects collided with each other, instead of passing each other, after they imagined the sound of the two mutually colliding objects. In the second experiment, the participants' spatial perception on the sound became biased against the location as they imagined being 'seen' a white circle. In the third experiment, participants' perceptions of what a person says change after they have visualized a particular sound.

According to scientists, the results of this study may be useful in understanding the mechanisms that generally occur in certain psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, in which the brain fails to distinguish between thought and reality. Use in other fields can also be the subject of research on computer brain interfaces, where the imagination of a paralyzed person can be used to control virtual and artificial devices.

"This is the first set of experiments to definitively establish that the sensory signals generated by a person's imagination are strong enough to alter one's real-world perception of different sensory modalities," explains Professor Henrik Ehrsson, chief researcher behind the study.

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