ResearchAttention, Perception, & Psychophysics
Where’s Wanda? The influence of visual imagery vividness on visual search speed measured by means of hidden object pictures
Monzel and ReuterDecember 2023
Abstract
Previous research demonstrated effects of visual imagery on search speed in visual search paradigms. However, these effects were rather small, questioning their ecological validity. Thus, our present study aimed to generalize these effects to more naturalistic material (i.e., a paradigm that allows for top-down strategies in highly complex visual search displays that include overlapping stimuli while simultaneously avoiding possibly confounding search instructions). One hundred and four participants with aphantasia (= absence of voluntary mental imagery) and 104 gender and age-matched controls were asked to find hidden objects in several hidden object pictures with search times recorded. Results showed that people with aphantasia were significantly slower than controls, even when controlling for age and general processing speed. Thus, effects of visual imagery might be strong enough to influence the perception of our real-life surroundings, probably because of the involvement of visual imagery in several top-down strategies.
Our summary in plain words
What This Study Is About
How They Studied It
- 104 people with aphantasia (a score of 23 or less on the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire, VVIQ) and 104 controls scoring above 23, matched for gender and age (average about 32). The groups did not differ in intelligence.
- The test ran online in 2021. In each of six trials, participants saw a target object, then a crowded hidden-object picture of the kind found in children's books, and clicked the target when they found it.
- No one was told to visualize or given search instructions. Search time ran from the picture's appearance to the click.
- A short speed-based intelligence test measured general processing speed, which was taken into account along with age.
What They Found
What This Might Mean
One Interesting Detail
This summary was written with AI and may contain errors. Check the original paper.
Authors
Merlin Monzel
Department of Psychology, Personality Psychology and Biological Psychology, University of Bonn, Kaiser-Karl-Ring 9, 53111 Bonn, Germany; Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH16 4SB, UK
31 papers in the libraryMartin Reuter
Department of Psychology University of Bonn Germany; Center for Economics and Neuroscience (CENs) Laboratory of Neurogenetics University of Bonn Germany
16 papers in the library
Cite this paper
Monzel, M., & Reuter, M. (2024). Where’s wanda? the influence of visual imagery vividness on visual search speed measured by means of hidden object pictures. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 86(1), 22–27. doi:10.3758/s13414-022-02645-6
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