ThinkAloud

This dataset is described in the following paper: "Su, H., Li, X., Born, S., Honey, C.J., Chen, J., Lee, H., 2025. Neural dynamics of spontaneous memory recall and future thinking in the continuous flow of thoughts. Nature Communications 16(1), 6433. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61807-w"

A total of 118 participants completed a think-aloud task for 10 minutes while undergoing fMRI in a 3T Philips Ingenia Elition scanner. During the task, they verbally described any thoughts that came to mind, with their speech recorded using an MRI-compatible microphone. A gray screen with a white fixation cross was displayed, viewed through a mirror mounted on the head coil.

Of the 118 participants, 43 were excluded from the fMRI analyses reported in the associated manuscript (Su et al., 2025) due to excessive motion (mean framewise displacement > 0.5 mm) or other factors listed below:

Anatomical anomaly: sub-018, sub-097

Artifact: sub-026

Excessive motion: sub-009, sub-010, sub-012, sub-014, sub-017, sub-019, sub-023, sub-029, sub-032, sub-034, sub-038, sub-047, sub-048, sub-049, sub-052, sub-053, sub-055, sub-057, sub-058, sub-059, sub-068, sub-069, sub-071, sub-076, sub-077, sub-082, sub-083, sub-084, sub-085, sub-087, sub-089, sub-092, sub-093, sub-099, sub-110, sub-111, sub-116, sub-117, sub-120

Projector disconnection during scan: sub-031

Eight additional participants were scanned but were not included in the current dataset due to unusable behavioral responses, caused by truncated scans, poor audio recording quality, or failure to follow instructions.

In the updated version of the dataset (v2.0.0), we added the "derivatives" folder containing preprocessed fMRI data generated by fMRIPrep and FreeSurfer. During preprocessing with fMRIPrep, magnetic field inhomogeneity correction was not performed for sub-077 due to an error in fieldmap processing.