scholarly journals Individual differences in mental imagery in different modalities and levels of intentionality

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgia A. Floridou ◽  
Kaya J. Peerdeman ◽  
Rebecca S. Schaefer
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Auditory Imagery ◽  
Common Component ◽  
Musical Imagery ◽  
Growing Domain ◽  
Substantial Progress ◽  
Human Function

AbstractMental imagery is a highly common component of everyday cognitive functioning. While substantial progress is being made in clarifying this fundamental human function, much is still unclear or unknown. A more comprehensive account of mental imagery aspects would be gained by examining individual differences in age, sex, and background experience in an activity and their association with imagery in different modalities and intentionality levels. The current online study combined multiple imagery self-report measures in a sample (n = 279) with a substantial age range (18–65 years), aiming to identify whether age, sex, or background experience in sports, music, or video games were associated with aspects of imagery in the visual, auditory, or motor stimulus modality and voluntary or involuntary intentionality level. The findings show weak positive associations between age and increased vividness of voluntary auditory imagery and decreased involuntary musical imagery frequency, weak associations between being female and more vivid visual imagery, and relations of greater music and video game experience with higher involuntary musical imagery frequency. Moreover, all imagery stimulus modalities were associated with each other, for both intentionality levels, except involuntary musical imagery frequency, which was only related to higher voluntary auditory imagery vividness. These results replicate previous research but also contribute new insights, showing that individual differences in age, sex, and background experience are associated with various aspects of imagery such as modality, intentionality, vividness, and frequency. The study’s findings can inform the growing domain of applications of mental imagery to clinical and pedagogical settings.

scholarly journals Individual Differences in Mental Imagery in Different Modalities and Levels of Intentionality

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgia Floridou ◽  
Kaya Peerdeman ◽  
Rebecca Schaefer
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Auditory Imagery ◽  
Musical Imagery ◽  
Online Study ◽  
Growing Domain ◽  
Substantial Progress ◽  
Human Function

Mental imagery is a highly common aspect of everyday cognitive functioning. While substantial progress is being made in clarifying this fundamental human function, much is still unclear or unknown. Examining individual differences in age, sex, and background experience in an activity in relation to the sensory and motor modality and intentionality level of imagery as well as the relation between them will contribute to a more comprehensive account of this mental function. The current online study combined multiple imagery self-report measures in a sample (n=279) with a substantial age range (18-65), aiming to identify whether age, sex, or background experience in sports, music, or video games were associated with aspects of imagery in the visual, auditory, or motor stimulus modality and voluntary or involuntary intentionality level. The findings show weak associations between age and auditory imagery aspects, weak associations between sex and visual imagery, and relations of music and video game experience with involuntary musical imagery. Moreover, all imagery stimulus modalities were associated to each other, for both intentionality levels, except involuntary musical imagery, which was only related to voluntary auditory imagery. These results replicate previous research but also contribute new insights, showing that individual differences in age, sex, and background experience can make modest contributions to various aspects of imagery. The findings can inform the growing domain of applications of mental imagery to clinical and pedagogical settings.

scholarly journals Auditory and Visual Mental Imagery in Musicians and Nonmusicians

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Talamini ◽  
Julia Vigl ◽  
Elizabeth Doerr ◽  
Massimo Grassi ◽  
Barbara Carretti
Keyword(s):  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Visual Imagery ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
Auditory Imagery ◽  
Visual Mental Imagery ◽  
Formally Trained

The present research investigated auditory and visual mental imagery and how this ability differs in people with and without musical training. In a first part, the characteristics of a new auditory imagery self-report questionnaire (the Vividness of Auditory Imagery Questionnaire, VAIQ) were reported. The questionnaire was composed of 16 items assessing mental vividness of auditory everyday sounds and it was administered to 147 participants, demonstrating good psychometric properties. In a second part, self-reported vividness of auditory and visual images was assessed in people with and without music expertise. Thirty-six formally trained musicians, 33 self-taught musicians, and 33 nonmusicians completed the questionnaires. The newly built questionnaire VAIQ and the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ, Marks, 1973) were administered. Music aptitude and general cognitive abilities were also assessed in all participants as control measures. We observed that both groups of musicians self-reported greater vividness of mental imagery for auditory nonmusical sounds than nonmusicians, but not for visual images. The study confirmed that music expertise is linked to enhanced self-reported auditory mental imagery for everyday sounds, illustrating that such advantage is selective for auditory imagery; no difference concerning visual imagery between the groups of musicians and nonmusicians emerged.

Evaluating the Mind’s Eye

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. 1535-1542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Pearson ◽  
Rosanne L. Rademaker ◽  
Frank Tong
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Binocular Rivalry ◽  
Catch Trial ◽  
Mental Image ◽  
Perceptual Bias ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Entire Study ◽  
Demand Characteristics ◽  
Mind's Eye

Can people evaluate phenomenal qualities of internally generated experiences, such as whether a mental image is vivid or detailed? This question exemplifies a problem of metacognition: How well do people know their own thoughts? In the study reported here, participants were instructed to imagine a specific visual pattern and rate its vividness, after which they were presented with an ambiguous rivalry display that consisted of the previously imagined pattern plus an orthogonal pattern. On individual trials, higher ratings of vividness predicted a greater likelihood that the imagined pattern would appear dominant when the participant was subsequently presented with the binocular rivalry display. Off-line self-report questionnaires measuring imagery vividness also predicted individual differences in the strength of imagery bias over the entire study. Perceptual bias due to mental imagery could not be attributed to demand characteristics, as no bias was observed on catch-trial presentations of mock rivalry displays. Our findings provide novel evidence that people have a good metacognitive understanding of their own mental imagery and can reliably evaluate the vividness of single episodes of imagination.

scholarly journals An efficient and adaptive test of auditory mental imagery

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Gelding ◽  
Peter M. C. Harrison ◽  
Seb Silas ◽  
Blake W Johnson ◽  
William Forde Thompson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Imagery Ability ◽  
Musical Imagery ◽  
Online Test ◽  
Ideal Tool ◽  
Individual Ability ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Automatic Item Generation

The ability to silently hear music in the mind has been argued to be fundamental to musicality. Objective measurements of this subjective imagery experience are needed if this link between imagery ability and musicality is to be investigated. However, previous tests of musical imagery either rely on self-report, rely on melodic memory, or do not cater in range of abilities. The Pitch Imagery Arrow Task (PIAT) was designed to address these shortcomings; however, it is impractically long. In this paper, we shorten the PIAT using adaptive testing and automatic item generation. We interrogate the cognitive processes underlying the PIAT through item response modelling. The result is an efficient online test of auditory mental imagery ability (adaptive Pitch Imagery Arrow Task: aPIAT) that takes 8 min to complete, is adaptive to participant’s individual ability, and so can be used to test participants with a range of musical backgrounds. Performance on the aPIAT showed positive moderate-to-strong correlations with measures of non-musical and musical working memory, self-reported musical training, and general musical sophistication. Ability on the task was best predicted by the ability to maintain and manipulate tones in mental imagery, as well as to resist perceptual biases that can lead to incorrect responses. As such, the aPIAT is the ideal tool in which to investigate the relationship between pitch imagery ability and musicality.

Self-Report Imagery Questionnaire Scores and Subtypes of Social-Desirable Responding

2008 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 181-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Allbutt ◽  
Jonathan Ling ◽  
Thomas M. Heffernan ◽  
Mohammed Shafiullah
Keyword(s):  
Visual Imagery ◽  
Correlational Analysis ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Auditory Imagery ◽  
Auditory Modality ◽  
Visual Thinking ◽  
Thinking Style ◽  
Social Desirable Responding

Allbutt, Ling, and Shafiullah (2006) and Allbutt, Shafiullah, and Ling (2006) found that scores on self-report measures of visual imagery experience correlate primarily with the egoistic form of social-desirable responding. Here, three studies are reported which investigated whether this pattern of findings generalized to the ratings of imagery vividness in the auditory modality, a new version of the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire ( Marks, 1995 ), and reports of visual thinking style. The measure of social-desirable responding used was the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR; Paulhus, 2002 ). Correlational analysis replicated the pattern seen in our earlier work and of the correlations with the egoistic bias, the correlation with vividness of visual imagery was largest and significant, the correlation with visual thinking style next largest and approached significance, and the correlation with vividness of auditory imagery was the smallest and not significant. The size of these correlations mirrored the extent to which the three aspects of imagery were valued by participants.

Large-Scale Demonstration Experiment of Mental Imagery Ability

1993 ◽  
Vol 76 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1089-1090 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Richard Ferraro
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Introductory Psychology Class ◽  
Imagery Ability ◽  
Psychology Class ◽  
Demonstration Experiment ◽  
And Gender

The present article describes a demonstration experiment used in a large introductory psychology class pertaining to mental imagery ability. The experiment is effective in providing a concrete instance of mental imagery as well as an effective discussion regarding individual differences and gender differences in imagery ability.

Individual differences related to present and future mental orientation predict the sense of time

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Wittmann ◽  
Henrike Fiedler ◽  
Wilhelm Gros ◽  
Julia Mossbridge ◽  
Cintia Retz Lucci
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Time Perspective ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Reproduction Task ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Waiting Period ◽  
Frequency Scale ◽  
Temporal Intervals ◽  
Sense Of Time

With this cross-sectional study we investigated how individual differences regarding present- and future-oriented mental processes are related to the experience of time in the seconds and minutes range. A sample of students (N = 100) filled out self-report measures of time perspective (ZTPI), mindfulness (FMI), impulsiveness (BIS), and the daydreaming frequency scale (DDFS). Furthermore they were asked to (a) retrospectively judge the duration of a waiting period of five minutes, and (b) to prospectively perform an visual duration reproduction task with intervals of 3, 6, and 9 seconds. Regression models show that (a) being more present fatalistic (ZTPI) and more impulsive are related to longer duration estimates of the waiting period, and (b) having a stronger propensity to daydream leads to a stronger under-reproduction of temporal intervals. These findings show how personality traits related to present orientation are associated with the state-like perception of duration.

Individual differences in white and grey matter structure associated with verbal habits of thought

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin C. Hayes ◽  
Katherine L Alfred ◽  
Rachel Pizzie ◽  
Joshua S. Cetron ◽  
David J. M. Kraemer
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
White Matter ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Grey Matter ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Structural Integrity ◽  
Diffusion Tensor ◽  
Self Report ◽  
White Matter Tracts

Modality specific encoding habits account for a significant portion of individual differences reflected in functional activation during cognitive processing. Yet, little is known about how these habits of thought influence long-term structural changes in the brain. Traditionally, habits of thought have been assessed using self-report questionnaires such as the visualizer-verbalizer questionnaire. Here, rather than relying on subjective reports, we measured habits of thought using a novel behavioral task assessing attentional biases toward picture and word stimuli. Hypothesizing that verbal habits of thought are reflected in the structural integrity of white matter tracts and cortical regions of interest, we used diffusion tensor imaging and volumetric analyses to assess this prediction. Using a whole-brain approach, we show that word bias is associated with increased volume in several bilateral language regions, in both white and grey matter parcels. Additionally, connectivity within white matter tracts within an a priori speech production network increased as a function of word bias. These results demonstrate long-term structural and morphological differences associated with verbal habits of thought.

Empirical Musical Imagery beyond the “Mind’s Ear”

2019 ◽  
pp. 444-463
Author(s):  
Freya Bailes
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Auditory Imagery ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Musical Imagery ◽  
Motor Processing ◽  
Sensory Motor ◽  
Auditory Experience ◽  
Kinesthetic Imagery

Freya Bailes deals with the topic of musical imagery, and she uses embodied cognition as a framework to argue that musical imagery is a multimodal experience. Existing empirical studies of musical imagery are reviewed and Bailes points to future directions for the study of musical imagery as an embodied-cognition phenomenon. Arguing that musical imagery can never be fully disembodied, Bailes moves beyond the idea of auditory imagery as merely a simulation of auditory experience by “the mind’s ear.” Instead, she outlines how imagining sounds involves kinesthetic imagery and she concludes that sound and music are always connected to sensory motor processing.

scholarly journals A meta-analysis on individual differences in primary emotional systems and Big Five personality traits

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Marengo ◽  
Kenneth L. Davis ◽  
Gökçe Özkarar Gradwohl ◽  
Christian Montag
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Big Five ◽  
Mammalian Species ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Big Five Personality Traits ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Big Five Personality ◽  
Affective Neuroscience ◽  
Emotional Systems

AbstractThe Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) were constructed as a self-report assessment to measure individual differences in Jaak Panksepp’s cross-species primary emotional systems: SEEKING, PLAY, CARE (positive emotions) and FEAR, SADNESS, ANGER (negative emotions). Beginning with the first published work on the ANPS in 2003, individual differences on the ANPS measures of these six primary emotional systems have been consistently linked to Big Five personality traits. From a theoretical perspective, these primary emotional systems arising from subcortical regions, shed light on the nature of the Big Five personality traits from an evolutionary perspective, because each of these primary emotional systems represent a tool for survival endowing mammalian species with inherited behavioral programs to react appropriately to complex environments. The present work revisited 21 available samples where both ANPS and Big Five measures have been administered. Our meta-analytical analysis provides solid evidence that high SEEKING relates to high Openness to Experience, high PLAY to high Extraversion, high CARE/low ANGER to high Agreeableness and high FEAR/SADNESS/ANGER to high Neuroticism. This seems to be true regardless of the ANPS inventory chosen, although much more work is needed in this area. Associations between primary emotional systems and Conscientiousness were in the lower effect size area across all six primary emotions, thereby supporting the idea that Conscientiousness rather seems to be less directly related with the subcortical primary emotions and likely is the most cognitive/cortical personality construct out of the Big Five. In sum, the present work underlines the idea that individual differences in primary emotional systems represent evolutionarily ancient foundations of human personality, given their a) meaningful links to the prominent Big Five model and b) their origins lying in subcortical areas of the human brain.

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