How do you measure something you can't see? Tools like the PSIQ and other imagery questionnaires let researchers quantify vividness and study it at scale.
Wymark and colleagues · Journal of the Neurological Sciences
Aphantasics showed higher brain entropy in frontal and temporal lobes and performed better on tasks when imagery was absent. This suggests aphantasia is a unique cognitive processing mode rather than a neurological deficit.
Kvamme and colleagues · NeuroImage
Vivid mental imagery is supported by high local efficiency and segregation in the imagery, occipital, and salience brain networks. This suggests that specialized, localized information transfer across these key networks is essential for vivid visualization.
Cui, Kong and Zhang · Frontiers in Psychology
Aphantasic participants showed muted neural responses and minimal autonomic changes during romantic imagery compared to those with vivid imagery. This suggests that mental imagery is a crucial driver of physiological and emotional arousal.
Lam and colleagues · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry
Higher mental imagery ability, particularly for emotional feelings, significantly enhances the effectiveness of cognitive bias modification in reducing social anxiety. This suggests that tailoring anxiety interventions to an individual's imagery capacity could improve clinical outcomes.
Bahmani, Taghi Ghare-Bagh and Nazemzadegan · International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology
Hyperphantasic individuals maintained high shooting accuracy regardless of their attentional focus, while mid-range imagers performed worse when focusing internally. This suggests hyperphantasia may buffer against the negative effects of suboptimal attentional strategies.
Monzel and colleagues · Behavior Research Methods
Researchers developed an improved binocular rivalry priming score that accounts for mixed trials and perceptual stability. This provides a more accurate behavioral measure for identifying aphantasia and validating self-reported imagery.
Welker and colleagues · Scientific Reports
Conceptual priming modulated perception across the vividness spectrum, even when visual imagery priming failed in those with low vividness. This indicates that abstract simulation styles are effective non-visual cognitive strategies.
Azañón and colleagues · Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
Researchers found no evidence that mental imagery vividness correlates with performance on a word-color interference task. This suggests that subjective imagery strength may not directly influence low-level perceptual processing or interference.
Mehta · Oxford Open Neuroscience
BCI-mediated actions can be both voluntary and unintentional because neural signals for contemplation and intended imagination are often indistinguishable. This highlights the need for better neural markers to safeguard user agency and privacy.
Bilzer and Monzel · Vision
Voluntary mental imagery and dream imagery show distinct multisensory profiles, with dreams being more immersive and visually dominant. This suggests that while both are forms of offline perception, they rely on partially separate neural networks.
Gouveia Gaglianone and colleagues · Imagination, Cognition and Personality
Soothing videos make it easier for individuals to generate vivid positive mental imagery about the future. This suggests that external media can serve as a powerful tool for emotional regulation and enhancing mental well-being.
Bouyer and colleagues · Cognition
Researchers found that while mental imagery can bias which image dominates during binocular rivalry, it does not objectively improve the detection of probes within those images. This suggests that imagery priming may reflect a subjective decision bias rather than a true increase in visual sensitivity.
Hechler and colleagues · Molecular Autism
Researchers partnered with autistic people to validate the CATI-R, a revised inventory that improves clarity and reduces stigma. This participatory approach ensures assessment tools better reflect diverse lived experiences across genders.
Husain and colleagues · BMC Psychology
The Big Five Inventory (BFI) and BFI-2 demonstrate high internal consistency across diverse languages and cultures. This confirms both versions are reliable tools for assessing personality traits in global research and clinical practice.
Baade and colleagues · Chemistry Education Research and Practice
Researchers found that mental imagery strength influences how students imagine and chunk chemical functional groups during problem-solving. This suggests that individual differences in imagery vividness may impact the efficiency of learning complex molecular structures.
Kvamme, Sandberg and Silvanto · Neuropsychologia
Researchers propose that mental imagery is part of an inwardly focused cognitive style linked to interoception and personality. This suggests that imagery vividness depends on a broader tendency to prioritize and attend to internal signals.
Suggate · Behavior Research Methods
Researchers found that self-reported imagery vividness across multiple senses predicts performance on mental comparison tasks. This confirms that mental imagery is a multi-modal process that directly influences cognitive task efficiency.
Rhodes and colleagues · Journal of Applied Sport Psychology
Athletes with low imagery ability significantly improved their multisensory vividness following a functional imagery training intervention. This demonstrates that imagery skills are malleable and can be enhanced through targeted practice.
Incekara and Blom · Frontiers in Psychology
Analysis of Carl Jung's self-reports suggests his anomalous experiences stemmed from hyperphantasia rather than a psychotic disorder. This indicates that extremely vivid imagery can cross a reality threshold and be misidentified as psychosis.
Sulfaro, Robinson and Carlson · Consciousness and Cognition
Researchers found that auditory imagery has a shorter onset and longer duration than visual imagery, with distinct patterns of automaticity across modalities. This suggests that different sensory imageries rely on unique temporal and neural mechanisms rather than a single unified process.