Neurobiological perspectives on the nature of visual and verbal processes

Wyer and colleagues in this issue summarize an array of studies that demonstrate varied and significant effects of a series of antecedents on the relative accessibility of visual and verbal strategies in memory and the ease with which these strategies can be employed to affect comprehension and judgments. We review the studies in light of findings and perspectives from psychophysiological and neuroimaging research. We discuss how measurement of event-related potentials (ERP) can illuminate automatic versus reflective forms of processes. Then the revelation of brain regions involved in the visual processing of pictures and words under different tasks and processes by functional brain imaging (e.g. functional MRI). We close by considering these bio-behavioral perspectives and the interactions among modality, task, and affect on visual and verbal encoding strategies among individuals differing in visual and verbal processing orientations.