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

Abstract

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.

Age-Related Changes in Everyday Forms of Involuntary and Voluntary Cognition

“…(Schlagman et al, 2006;2009). However, our findings do agree with reports in the mental imagery literature, which do not typically report associations, or find very small associations, between age and the vividness of various mental imagery stimulus-modalities (Floridou, Peerdeman, & Schaefer, 2019;Lima et al, 2015;Mailouin et al, 2010;Mulder et al, 2007;Saimpont et al, 2012). It has been argued that mental imagery is a fundamental feature of voluntary autobiographical memory and contributes to several of its phenomenological characteristics (Conway, 2009;Greenberg & Knowlton, 2014) such as vividness (D'Argembeau & Van der Linden, 2006).…”

Psychometric evaluation of the Involuntary Musical Imagery Scale (IMIS) in a South African sample

“…The scale has subsequently been used in a variety of MI studies, including examinations of INMI accompanied by voluntary and involuntary mental imagery (Floridou et al, 2019b), retrospective versus experience-sampling methods for assessing MI (Cotter & Silvia, 2017), associations between aspects of INMI experience and brain structure (Farrugia et al, 2015), comparisons between INMI as a form of involuntary memory and voluntary MI in terms of tempo recall and emotional response (Jakubowski et al, 2018), and aging and involuntary/voluntary cognitions (Floridou et al, 2019a).…”