Schedule of Events | Search Abstracts | Invited Symposia | Symposia | Poster Sessions | Data Blitz

Sketchpad Series 

Individual Differences in Visual Perspective: Validation of the Visual Perspective Questionnaire (VPQ)

Poster Session B - Sunday, March 8, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Claudia Morales Valiente¹ (), Peggy L. St. Jacques¹; ¹University of Alberta

Visual perspective, the ability to remember or imagine events through one’s own-eyes or from an observer-like vantage point, is a defining feature of autobiographical memory. The viewpoint people adopt shapes what is remembered, how vividly and emotionally it is experienced, and how the self is represented within the event. Yet people vary widely in their habitual use of these perspectives, and until now there has been no validated tool for systematically assessing individual differences in visual perspective. This study validated the Visual Perspective Questionnaire (VPQ), a brief self-report instrument designed to assess tendencies toward own-eyes and observer-like perspectives. Because theoretical accounts vary in how visual perspective is conceptualized, we tested three possibilities: that own-eyes and observer-like perspectives are mutually exclusive, graded along a shared continuum, or distinct yet coexisting cognitive tendencies. Using data from 16,594 participants, we evaluated these three accounts through reliability, factor, and validation analyses. Results supported an independent framework, revealing a two-factor structure in which own-eyes and observer-like perspectives formed separable yet correlated dimensions. External validation further revealed that the own-eyes perspective was positively correlated with imagery vividness (Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire), whereas the observer-like perspective was positively correlated with spatial navigation ability (Wayfinding Questionnaire). Overall, the findings establish the VPQ as a concise, psychometrically robust instrument capturing two separable yet complementary dimensions of visual perspective-taking. This behavioural dissociation provides a foundation for future work linking individual differences in visual perspective preferences to the neural architecture of autobiographical memory and mental imagery.

Topic Area: METHODS: Other