In the big picture I think the overall mind knows what it is perceiving as real and what is not, therefore there is a difference in a biological responses.
Yes it does...
2 examples of related studies
Brain activity evoked by inverted and imagined biological motion
Abstract
Previous imaging research has identified an area on the human posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS) activated upon viewing biological motion. The current experiments explore the relationship between neural activity within this region and perceptual experience. Biological motion perception is orientation dependent: inverting point-light animations make them more difficult to see. We measured activity levels within this region as observers viewed inverted point-light animations. We also measured neural activity while observers imagined biological motion and compared it to that measured while observers viewed the animations. In both experiments we found that the BOLD response was modulated with perceptual experience. Viewing inverted biological motion activated posterior STS more than scrambled motion, but less than upright biological motion.
Mental imagery of biological motion was also sufficient to activate this region in most of our observers, but the level of activity was weaker than during actual viewing of the motion animations. (EMPHASIS ADDED)
Neural Substrates of Real and Imagined Sensorimotor Coordination
O. Oullier, K.J. Jantzen, F.L. Steinberg and J.A.S. Kelso
Abstract
Much debate in the behavioral literature focuses on the relative contribution of motor and perceptual processes in mediating coordinative stability. To a large degree, such debate has proceeded independently of what is going on in the brain. Here, using blood oxygen level-dependent measures of neural activation, we compare physically executed and imagined rhythmic coordination in order to better assess the relative contribution of hypothesized neuromusculoskeletal mechanisms in modulating behavioral stability. The executed tasks were to coordinate index finger to thumb opposition movements of the right hand with an auditory metronome in either a synchronized (on the beat) or syncopated (off the beat) pattern. Imagination involved the same tasks, except without physical movement. Thus, the sensory stimulus and coordination constraints were the same in both physical and imagination tasks, but the motoric requirements were not. Results showed that neural differences between executed synchronization and syncopation found in premotor cortex, supplementary motor area, basal ganglia and lateral cerebellum persist even when the coordinative patterns were only imagined. Neural indices reflecting behavioral stability were not abolished by the absence of overt movement suggesting that coordination phenomena are not exclusively rooted in purely motoric constraints.
On the other hand, activity in the superior temporal gyrus was modulated by both the presence of movement and the nature of the coordination, attesting to the intimacy between perceptual and motoric processes in coordination dynamics.(EMPHASIS ADDED)
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Topic: Controlled aggression pad drills for muscle memory (Read 2218 times)