SUMMARYA new instrument, the Object-Spatial Imagery Questionnaire (OSIQ), was designed to assess individual differences in visual imagery preferences and experiences. The OSIQ consists of two scales: an object imagery scale that assesses preferences for representing and processing colourful, pictorial, and high-resolution images of individual objects and a spatial imagery scale that assesses preferences for representing and processing schematic images, spatial relations amongst objects, and spatial transformations. Across a series of studies, the object imagery scale was significantly correlated with the performance on object imagery tasks; the spatial imagery scale was significantly correlated with the performance on spatial imagery tasks; but neither correlated with measures of intelligence. Additionally, compared to visual artists and humanities professionals, scientists reported higher spatial imagery ratings; however, compared to scientists and humanities professionals, visual artists reported higher object imagery ratings. Thus, the results from the studies supported the predictive, discriminant, and ecological validity of the OSIQ.

In Experiment 1, participants completed one of two versions of a computerized pointing direction task that used the same stimuli but different spatial transformation instructions. In the perspectivetaking version, participants were to imagine standing at one location facing a second location and then to imagine pointing to a third location. In the array-rotation version, participants saw a vector pointing to one location, were to imagine the second vector with the same base as the first pointing to a second location, to mentally rotate the two vectors, and finally to indicate the direction of the imagined vector after the rotation. In Experiment 2, participants completed the perspective-taking, mental rotation, and four large-scale navigational tasks. The results showed that the perspectivetaking task required unique spatial transformation ability from the array rotation task, and the perspective-taking task predicted unique variance over the mental rotation task in navigational tasks that required updating self-to-object representations.

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In the current research, we took a new approach to examining individual differences in mental imagery that relied on a key distinction regarding visual imagery, namely the distinction between object and spatial imagery, and further examined the ecological validity of this distinction. Object

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