EventsTalk
Does Vivid Imagery Mean Better Memory?
William Duckett, University of Cambridge
When a memory feels vivid, how sure can you be that it’s right?
Studies of imagery and memory have mostly asked how vivid your imagery is in general, and their results conflict. Another way is to ask about state vividness: how vivid one memory feels at the moment you recall it.
So does vividness go with accuracy, and if it does, which kind?
What the study found
William Duckett tested this in “State but not trait measures of vividness relate to memory accuracy”, published in the journal Neuropsychologia in 2026.
The study tested 60 adults online: 30 aged 18 to 30 and 30 aged 60 to 72.
They looked at scenes with objects in them, told only that the study was about how people see scenes. Later they saw each scene again and said whether one object had changed colour, moved or stayed the same. Before each answer, they rated how vivid their memory of the scene felt.
Scores on a standard imagery questionnaire didn’t predict how well people remembered. Neither did how vivid their memories felt on average.
But memory by memory, vividness mattered: when someone rated a memory as more vivid than their own average, they were more likely to be right. That held for colour changes, moves and unchanged scenes alike.
Older adults rated their imagery as more vivid on the questionnaire, yet were less accurate than the younger group.
The paper also re-analyzed an earlier study that included people with aphantasia. The same memory-by-memory link showed up in every group.
In that re-analysis, people with aphantasia made fewer errors than typical imagers who rated their memories as just as vivid, though the original analysis had found the two groups equally accurate overall.
This was one online study, and it shows a link, not a cause. The authors conclude that vividness plays a part in memory but doesn’t explain it on its own.
What you’ll take away
- Why an imagery questionnaire score may say little about your memory
- The difference between your imagery in general and one memory in the moment
- What a second look at aphantasia data showed about vividness and errors
About William
William Duckett is a postgraduate student in the Memory Laboratory in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. He studies mental imagery and memory, including what the vividness of a memory says about its accuracy.