Vividness Of Images Research Articles

Comparative efficacy of EMDR and alternative procedures in reducing the vividness of mental images

Abstract Data evaluating the effectiveness of EMDR suggest that, although it appears to be an effective treatment for many types of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders, the major support comes from limited-subject case studies. To further investigate this issue, the relative efficacy (in comparison to simpler procedures) of EMDR for reduction of the vividness of subjects' memories was investigated in a non-clincal sample. Results indicated that EMDR was more successful than comparable techniques in reducing the intensity of subjects' mental images.

Is Imagery a Functional Component of the "Bizarre Imagery" Phenomenon?

Prerecall vividness ratings are lower for images from «bizarre» than from «common» sentences. This finding conflicts with the supposition that imagery serves as the mnemonic basis of the bizarre imagery recall phenomenon. To assess this contradiction, subjects were given a battery of imaging ability tests (e.g., the Betts Questionnaire of Mental Imagery) and measures of social desirability (e.g., the Marlowe-Crowne D-Scale) in addition to participating in the standard conditions that elicit the bizarre imagery effect (instructions to rate the vividness of images produced by sentences, within-list exposure to both common and bizarre sentences, recall testing)

The Effect of Image Vividness on Reality Monitoring

In this experimental study of “reality monintoring” as in an earlier study by Johnson, Raye, Wang, and Taylor, each of thirty-six pictures was visually perceived two, five, or eight times and was visually imaged two, five, or eight times. When subjects in these studies were asked to estimate how many times each picture had actually been perceived, their frequency estimates were higher not only for pictures that had been perceived more often, but also for pictures that had been imaged more often. Such misremembered imaging in the experiment by Johnson, et al., was significantly more pronounced in subjects with better visual memory. In contrast, the misremembrance of frequent images in the current experiment was significantly less pronounced in subjects with more vivid imagery. The implications of these findings for immediate “reality testing” and memorial “reality monitoring”, as described by Kunzendorf and Johnson respectively, are discussed.

Ability of well‐read‐to kindergartners to decontextualise/recontextualise experience into a written‐narrative register

Abstract This study examined ‘pretend readings’ of 20 well‐read‐to kindergart‐ners for their ability to produce decontextualised/recontextualised language considered appropriate for written narrative. In a previous study, 20 kindergartners had told about their birthday parties and pretended to read a wordless picture book to a doll. Using Rader's (1982) depiction of the novelist's task as one to create ‘within‐text worlds’, the language samples were examined for: (a) referential attempts; and (b) vividness of images provoked by verb use. Reference use was analysed from the perspective of Clark & Haviland's (1977) ‘Given/ New’ contract. Verbs were scored for imagability using a researcher‐designed rating scale. Results from this analysis and re‐examination of results from an earlier analysis of the data revealed that the children possessed implicit knowledge of the decontextualised nature of written narrative. Specifically, they were implicitly aware of the role of the writer of narrative in creating a wit...

Regional cerebral blood flow patterns in visual imagery

Regional cerebral blood flow patterns were investigated by means of single photon emission computerized tomography in subjects who solved cognitive tasks which either did or did not require the use of visual imagery. In a first experiment judging the correctness of visual imagery sentences like “a grapefruit is bigger than an orange” led to increases of regional activity in inferior temporal and in the left inferior-occipital region when compared to blood flow patterns elicited by judgements about low imagery sentences or by responding differentially to “yes” and “no”. Motor imagery sentences did not cause such an increase. In a second experiment a condition in which visual images were used for counting the corners of letters was compared to a condition in which subjects internally rehearsed the alphabet. The only difference concerned the inferior frontal regions which showed higher activity in rehearsing the alphabet. However, activity in inferior temporal and inferior occipital regions showed a positive correlation to the self-rated vividness of the visual images in the corner counting condition. The results of both experiments yield converging evidence that visual imagery is selectively related to activity of inferior-temporal and occipital regions. They thus support the hypothesis that the cerebral correlate of visual imagery is different from that of non-imaginal thinking.

Slow brain potentials, imagery and hemispheric differences.

On the basis of Lang's (1979) theory of emotional imagery three experiments were conducted to investigate the relationship between slow cortical potentials (SP) and emotional imagery. According to the assumptions of Lang's theory and our model (Rockstroh et al., 1982) of SP-function imagery ability should be related to a person's capacity to generate and suppress preparatory activity in cortical networks "on demand." In order to test this hypothesis subjects in Experiment I were trained to regulate right- versus left-hemispheric SP-differentiation within an instrumental learning paradigm. Thirty-four subjects were reinforced for achieving maximal SP-differences between electrode locations C3-C4 over a 6 s interval across 120 trials. Success in the SP-regulation task correlated significantly (r = .37) with the capacity for vivid imagery as measured with the Questionnaire for Mental Imagery (QMI). In Experiment II instructions to imagine right- versus left-hand movements were introduced successively over 5 sessions of SP-self-regulation. Imagery clearly modified right- versus left-hand EMG-differentiation but had no influence on cortical SP-differentiation. Experiment III tested the influence of already achieved SP-regulation at the vertex on the perceived vividness of emotional images introduced after the SP-biofeedback training. Again, clear effects of imagery content on autonomic variables (HR, SCR) were found. However, SP-amplitude and SP-polarity had no effect on perceived vividness, arousal or emotional content. It may be concluded from the results of Experiment II and III that SPs either are not the crucial parameter to represent the cortical efferent outflow component of imagery, or that the dual task of SP-self-regulation and imagery prevented covariations to show up. Experiment I, on the other hand, points toward a positive relation of imagery-ability as a trait-variable and brain-self-regulation abilities.

Repression as the Monitoring and Censoring of Images: An Empirical Study

The results of the present research show, first, that repressers' waking images are less vivid than sensitizers' waking images. They show, also, that hypnosis increases the vividness of repressers' images, but not the vividness of sensitizers' images. Such results were predicted by the theory of cognitive-state monitoring and its corollary, that wakeful image-monitoring plays a role in repressing potentially traumatic images.

Individual differences in mental imagery ability: A computational analysis

This study addressed two questions: is mental imagery ability an undifferentiated general skill, or is it composed of a number of relatively distinct subabilities? Further, if imagery is not an undifferentiated general ability, can its structure be understood in terms of the processing components posited by the Kosslyn and Shwartz theory of imagery representation? A set of tasks was devised, and a model was specified for each task. These models invoked different combinations of the processing components posited in the general theory. Fifty people were tested on the tasks, and their scores on each measure were then correlated. A very wide range of correlation coefficients was found—which suggests that the subjects were not simply good or poor at imagery in general. In addition, the similarity of each pair of processing models was computed by considering the number of shared processing components. The correlations among scores were then compared to the predicted similarities in processing, and were found to be highly related to these measures. A common sense theory was also considered, based on the idea that people differ on variables such as ‘image vividness’ and ‘image control’. The Kosslyn and Shwartz theory proved a better predictor of the results than the common sense theory. Thus, imagery ability is not an undifferentiated general skill, and the underlying components bear a strong correspondence to those posited by the theory. Various additional analyses supported these conclusions.

Definition And Measurement Of Three Processes Of Imagery Representation: Exploratory Studies Of Verbally Stimulated Imagery.

Three sets of experiments lend support to the hypothesis that there are at least three processes of imagery: (1) figural, in which a quasi-visual or other sensory representation of an object is made; (2) symbolic in which an abstract concepts is illustrated or symbolized by some imaginal representation; and (3) mimetic, in which a human experience is given a complex imaginal representation involving both envisionment and enactment or miming. Two types of scales for measuring stylistic differences in these three, processes are presented in detail. One type of scale is drawn from subjects' ratings of the ease and speed with which images are aroused by concrete, abstract, or personal words respectively. The other type of scale is drawn from subjects' ratings of the vividness of images aroused by various phrases specifically written to tap one or other of the hypothesized imagery processes. Two experiments are described in which the three processes are differentially activated by instructions as well as by type of stimulus material. In both experiments the expected interaction effects (between instructions and type of material) are found with p <.001.

Relationships among measures of visual imagery

As a step toward the development of an objective measure of visualization ability, five tasks which yielded seven separate measures were administered to 74 Ss and intercorrelated. The tasks were: paired associate recall improvement (RI), recognition memory (RM), the Bett's Questionnaire on Mental Imagery (QMI) as revised by Sheehan (1967a, b), a task calling for the production of visual images (PVI) where rated vividness and latency of image attainment were measured, and a task requiring the imagining of emotional scenes (ES) where rated vividness and rated anxiety were measured. The results indicated that although paired associate learning scores per se were related to RM, neither of the memory measures of visualization (RI and RM) were related to any of the other visualization measures. A cluster of intercorrelations was obtained among self-ratings of image vividness on the QMI, PVI and ES tasks. This cluster also included a measure of latency of report of “best image” attainable derived from the PVI task. None of the measures correlated with anxiety ratings on the ES task. These findings were discussed in relation to previous studies and the potential value of the latency measure as an adjunct measure of visualization ability was noted.

Visual imagery differences in the recall of pictures.

Male and female subjects who differed in their verbal reports of visual image vividness were tested for recall in three experiments involving coloured photographs as stimuli. In all three experiments subjects who reported vivid visual imagery were more accurate in recall than subjects who reported poor visual imagery. In the first two experiments, females recalled more accurately than males. On the assumption that vividness reports and recall were both mediated by the same covert event ‐ a visual image ‐ these results provide further evidence that images have an important role in memory.

Effects of eye movements on the rate of discovery and the vividness of visual images

Two studies investigated the effects of eye movements on the rate of discovery and the vividness of visual images. Eye movements were manipulated by having three conditions: (1) The Ss were instructed to make eye movements while generating images to noun pairs; (2) the Ss were instructed not to make eye movements, but to think about making eye movements while generating images to noun pairs; (3) the Ss were instructed not to make eye movements and not to think about making eye movements while generating images to noun pairs. In addition, the ease of generating images was manipulated by using noun pairs that differed in their image-evoking capacity; five of the noun pairs consisted of high imagery-evoking nouns and five consisted of low imagery-evoking nouns. The two experiments were similar, with the exception that a between-groups design was used in Experiment 1, whereas Experiment 2 employed a within-Ss design. The results of both experiments showed highly significant effects of noun-pair type on both the rate of discovery and the vividness of images, with the fastest and most vivid images occuring to the high-imagery noun pairs. The effects of the eye-movement conditions on the rate of discovery and the vividness of the images were not significant in either experiment, and these findings are discussed in terms of the relationship of ocular activity to imagery.