Abstract
Vividness of imagery usually refers to the degree of similarity between mental images and corresponding percepts of real objects. One of the recently developed questionnaires, proposed to measure the vividness of auditory imagery, is the Clarity of Auditory Imagery Scale (CAIS). The main goal of the present study was to assess the factor structure, internal consistency, and test–retest reliability of the Polish version of the CAIS. The study was conducted on musicians (N = 39) and non-musicians (N = 40) to establish differences between the two groups in the vividness (or more specifically, clarity) of their auditory images. A combination of the minimum average partial (MAP) test and parallel analysis (PA) was used as a method of establishing the number of factors and provided evidence that the CAIS is one factor questionnaire. Test–retest reliability was measured by the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) between the mean scores obtained in two measurements made over a one-week interval. The test–retest (ICC) obtained between two measurements equaled .85. The ICC value showed satisfactory stability of the measurement of the vividness of auditory images, at least for short time intervals. The internal consistency of the scale was also satisfactory (Cronbach’s α = .87). Summarizing, the psychometric properties of the Polish version of the CAIS indicate that the scale is a reliable measure of the vividness of auditory imagery. Vividness of auditory imagery measured by the CAIS was not influenced by sex or musical expertise factors.
Highlights
Auditory imagery is defined as an introspective, nonhallucinatory experience of hearing that occurs in the absence of real sound (Hubbard 2013)
Factor analysis of the data obtained from 79 participants in the first stage of the study was conducted on 16 items included in the Polish version of the Clarity of Auditory Imagery Scale (CAIS)
The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of the sampling adequacy equaled .83, which may be interpreted as excellent (Field 2009; Kaiser 1974) and indicated that a factor analysis may be performed on the data collected in the first stage of the study
Summary
Auditory imagery is defined as an introspective, nonhallucinatory experience of hearing that occurs in the absence of real sound (Hubbard 2013). There is almost general agreement that vividness (in terms of similarity between the real sound and its image) is an attribute of auditory images (Andrade et al 2014; Betts 1909; Gissurarson 1992; Halpern 2015; Hishitani 2009; Hubbard 2010, 2013, 2018; Lacey and Lawson 2013; Willander and Baraldi 2010). There are several questionnaires which are entirely or partly designed for measuring the vividness or clarity of auditory imagery: the Questionnaire on Mental Imagery (QMI) (Betts 1909), the shortened version of the Questionnaire on Mental Imagery (Betts’ QMI) (Sheehan 1967), the Auditory Imagery Scale (AIS) (Gissurarson 1992), the Auditory Imagery Questionnaire (AIQ) (Hishitani 2009), the Clarity of Auditory Imagery Scale (CAIS) (Willander and Baraldi 2010), the Bucknell Auditory Imagery Scale – Vividness (BAIS-V) (Halpern 2015), and the Plymouth Sensory Imagery Questionnaire (Psi-Q) (Andrade et al 2014)
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