Lexical competence includes both the ability to relate words to the external world as accessed through (mainly) visual perception (referential competence) and the ability to relate words to other words (inferential competence). We investigated the role of visual imagery in lexical inferential competence by using an auditory version of an inferential naming-to-definition task, in which visual imageability of both definitions and target words was manipulated. A visual imageability-related brain activity (bilateral posterior-parietal lobe and ventrotemporal cortex, including fusiform gyrus) was found during a "pure" inferential performance. The definition effect in high vs. low imageability contrast suggests that a visual-imagery strategy is spontaneously activated during the retrieval of a word from a high imageable definition; such an effect appears to be independent of whether the target word is high or low imageable. This contributes to the understanding of the neural correlates of semantic processing and the differential role of spontaneous visual imagery, depending on the semantic properties of the processed stimuli.

中文翻译：

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命名任务期间，可成像性对功能性大脑活动的影响。

词汇能力既包括通过主要通过视觉感知将单词与外界联系起来的能力（指称能力），也包括将单词与其他词联系起来的能力（推论能力）。我们通过使用推理命名到定义任务的听觉版本来研究视觉意象在词汇推理能力中的作用，其中定义和目标词的视觉意象都得到了操纵。在“纯粹的”推理过程中发现了与视觉可成像性相关的大脑活动（双侧后顶叶和腹颞叶皮层，包括梭状回）。高可成像性与低可成像性对比中的清晰度效应表明，从高可成像清晰度检索单词时，视觉图像策略是自发激活的。这样的效果似乎与目标单词的可成像性高还是低无关。这有助于理解语义处理的神经相关性和自发视觉图像的不同作用，具体取决于所处理刺激的语义特性。