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Sketchpad Series 

Reimagining the Measurement of Mental Imagery

Poster Session A - Saturday, March 7, 3:00 – 5:00 pm, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballrooms

Cassandra G Ivie¹ (ci2383a@american.edu), Sarah E Wene¹, Elshadai Melkam², Emily G Peterson¹; ¹American University, Washington, D.C., ²Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD

Mental imagery has been studied in conjunction with a variety of cognitive processes, including memory, creativity, and spatial thinking, and has important implications in clinical psychology. Nevertheless, it remains difficult to quantify. Currently, most measures of mental imagery, such as the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) and Plymouth Sensory Imagery Questionnaire (PSIQ), ask participants to self-report their mental imagery vividness. However, outdated language and ambiguity in prompts can limit their usefulness as measures, especially if participants are unclear on what vividness means. This project aims to develop a novel measure of mental imagery through two phases of study. First, we are investigating how the prompt characteristics, specifically the number of details and level of novelty/familiarity, impact perceived vividness ratings. This will inform future attempts at creating mental imagery survey measures and tasks eliciting mental visualization. Second, we have developed the Mental Imagery Tuning Task (MITT), a new interactive online tool that measures and depicts mental images. It allows participants to select an image to approximate their visualization, and to adjust its saturation, contrast, blur, and opacity so that it matches their internal mental image as closely as possible. In addition to utilizing technology to provide an alternative measure, the MITT outputs image files depicting perceived vividness, providing an opportunity to visually compare internal experiences that can be difficult to verbally describe. Preliminary results (N=22) show a statistically significant correlation between VVIQ and MITT scores (r=.47, p =.03). An investigation of reliability and validity is planned.

Topic Area: METHODS: Other