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.
Schwarzkopf · Cortex
Mental imagery varies between "projectors" who see images in their visual field and "associators" who experience them internally. Recognizing these distinct modes is crucial for accurately measuring imagery and understanding aphantasia.
Monzel, Karneboge and Reuter · Journal of Neuroscience Research
Researchers are investigating whether transiently reducing dopamine synthesis through an amino acid mixture decreases the strength of voluntary mental imagery. This study could reveal the neurochemical basis of aphantasia and identify potential targets for imagery-enhancing interventions.
Pace, Koenig-Robert and Pearson · Psychological Science
Mental imagery reversed the suppressive effects of visual adaptation, unlike weak perception which increased them. This suggests that imagery and perception rely on different neural mechanisms, with imagery likely acting through inhibitory modulation.
Marks · Vision
Researchers synthesized historical and contemporary data to create a 16-descriptor template for visual mental imagery. This provides a normative standard to better understand individual differences in imagery vividness and clinical conditions.
Wagner and Monzel · Brain and Behavior
People with schizophrenia showed no increase in voluntary visual imagery strength on subjective or objective measures. This suggests that hallucinations are driven by mechanisms other than enhanced voluntary mental imagery.
Sulfaro, Robinson and Carlson
Researchers found that competition from real-world sensory input prevents mental images from becoming fully visible hallucinations. This suggests that the "quasi-sensory" nature of imagery is a direct result of perceptual interference.
Riley and Davies · Brain and Cognition
Researchers proposed that mental imagery vividness is determined by how closely a generated image matches a predictive model derived from beliefs and expectations. This suggests vividness is a relational property of internal consistency rather than a direct reflection of sensory-like detail.
Monzel, Keidel and Reuter · Journal of Research in Personality
People with aphantasia scored lower on empathy when distressing scenes were described in words, but not when they were shown as photos. This suggests written empathy tests may partly measure imagery rather than empathy.
Dijkstra and Fleming · Nature Communications
The brain distinguishes reality from imagination based on whether intermixed sensory signals cross a strength threshold. This suggests that sufficiently vivid mental imagery can become subjectively indistinguishable from actual perception.
Lupyan and colleagues · Cognitive Science
People vary widely in their hidden internal experiences, often assuming their own subjective reality is universal. Studying these phenomenal differences helps researchers identify non-visual cognitive strategies and test the limits of universal psychological theories.
Gabriele and colleagues · Biological Psychology
Researchers developed the Interoceptive Accuracy Scale (IAS) to distinguish between beliefs about interoceptive attention and actual perceived accuracy. This tool allows for more precise measurement of how internal body awareness relates to mental health.
Salge, Pollmann and Reeder · Psychological Research
Researchers found that higher visual imagery vividness correlates with increased pareidolia proneness in both static and dynamic noise. This suggests that vivid mental imagery can lead to more frequent misperceptions of reality.
Zabelina and Condon · Psychological Research
The Four-Factor Imagination Scale (FFIS) identifies frequency, complexity, emotional valence, and directedness as distinct dimensions of imagination. This suggests imagination is a multi-faceted construct rather than just a measure of mental imagery.
Murphy and colleagues · Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
Researchers developed the Interoceptive Accuracy Scale (IAS) to distinguish between perceived attention to and accuracy of bodily signals. This confirms that interoceptive attention and accuracy are distinct, dissociable traits.
Kwok and colleagues · Psychological Science
Suppressed visual thoughts form sensory traces in the early visual cortex even when individuals report successful suppression. This provides an objective way to measure how nonconscious representations trigger thought-control failure.
Renner and colleagues · Behaviour Research and Therapy
Mental imagery of future activities increases motivation and anticipated reward for those tasks. This suggests that simulating positive future events can act as a motivational amplifier to help people overcome procrastination.
Mehling and colleagues · PLOS ONE
Researchers developed the MAIA-2, a 37-item scale with improved reliability for measuring dimensions of interoceptive awareness. This provides a more robust tool for studying mind-body interventions and internal bodily signal processing.
Alderson-Day and colleagues · Consciousness and Cognition
Researchers developed a revised inner speech questionnaire identifying five distinct dimensions, including a new positive-regulatory factor. This provides a more nuanced tool for linking specific internal verbal experiences to various psychopathological traits.
Preece and colleagues · Personality and Individual Differences
The Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire was found to reliably measure emotional processing deficits across both positive and negative valences. This allows for more nuanced clinical assessment of how individuals appraise different emotional states.
Slofstra and colleagues · Cognition and Emotion
Higher levels of visual mental imagery in daily life were associated with better mood and more positive affect, regardless of the imagery's valence. This suggests that spontaneous imagery-based processing may play a protective role in emotional well-being.