Goal-directed fantasy, hypnotic susceptibility, and expectancies.

We conducted an initial screening session in which hypnosis was presented as a "test of imagination" and administered with other imagination measures. In a 2nd session, we instructed high- and low-hypnotizable Ss to imagine along with suggestions but to resist responding to motoric suggestions. Ss received either instructions to use goal-directed fantasies (GDFs) or no facilitative instructions. Sizable individual difference effects were secured. Hypnotizable Ss exhibited more suggestion-related movements and reported greater involuntariness than did low-hypnotizable Ss. With GDF instructions, low- and high-hypnotizable Ss reported equivalent GDF absorption and frequencies. However, hypnotizable Ss exhibited greater responsiveness and reported greater involuntariness than did those low in hypnotizability, even when their GDFs were equivalent. Thus, no support was generated for the hypotheses that sustained, elaborated suggestion-related imagery mediates response to suggestion or that absorption in suggestions is of particular importance for low-hypnotizable Ss. Findings support the hypothesis that expectancies mediate the relation between imagination, involuntariness, and responding. Hypnotizable imagining Ss exhibited greater responsiveness than a comparable sample of Ss did in a previous countersuggestion study (Lynn, Nash, Rhue, Frauman, & Stanley, 1983). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Further comparison of representational and transformational prose-learning imagery.

120 8th graders were asked to read fictitious passages describing the accomplishments of famous people. Two types of visual imagery instructions (representational and transformational) were manipulated within 2 passage types (name and occupation), along with no-strategy control instructions for each passage type. Data show that, consistent with theoretical predictions, transformational imagery instructions were uniquely effective on the difficult-to-remember name passages, but not on the more easily represented occupation passages. Representational imagery instructions were not facilitative on either passage type. Results support the 2nd author's (1981) distinction among prose-learning imagery functions and suggest that transformational imagery substantially improves recall of difficult-to-remember factual information, while explicit imagery instructions are not as critical for passages that contain directly codable information. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age-related differences in memory as a function of imagery processing.

The effects of aging on imagery production and use (following the learning of concrete and abstract words) and their relations to subsequent memory performance were explored in 2 experiments. Both experiments demonstrated better free recall of concrete than of abstract words (the concreteness effect). Exp 1 showed this superiority to be greater for young Ss only under explicit imagery instructions. Exp 2 revealed that the advantage of concrete over abstract words reflects the use of differential imagery production. The results are discussed in terms of age differences in imagery utilization and the effects of visual processing on recall. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intentional and spontaneous imagery in hypnosis: the phenomenology of hypnotic responding

Students were given 1 of 2 versions of the Carleton University Responsiveness to Suggestion Scale (CURSS): (a) the original version, which contains instructions to intentionally imagine goal-directed fantasies, and (b) a modified version, in which instructions for suggestion-related imagery were deleted. Participants were asked to report their goal-directed fantasies and to indicate whether these occurred spontaneously or were generated intentionally. They were also asked whether they had tried intentionally to generate the suggested experience and to indicate whether they had believed that the suggested states of affairs were real (e.g., whether they thought a hallucinated cat really existed). The deletion of instructions for goal-related imagery significantly increased responsiveness to CURSS suggestions. Spontaneous goal-directed imagery was significantly correlated with behavioral response, but intentional imagery was not. Most successful responders tried to generate suggested experiences intentionally, indicated that they could have resisted challenge suggestions if they really wanted to, and reported believing in the reality of suggested ideomotor and challenge experiences but not of cognitive suggestions. Voluntary attempts to generate suggested experiences were correlated with subjective responding.     

Spatial and verbal abilities in children's crossmodal recognition: A dual coding approach.

Conducted 2 experiments to study the relative importance of visuospatial (VSAs) and verbal referential abilities (VRAs) to 184 English-speaking children's (aged 4 yrs 11 mo to 8 yrs) crossmodal performance under imagery, naming, and control instructions. Using the Minnesota Paper Form(s) Board Test Revised, imagery instructions induced Ss to implement a visual imagery strategy that depended primarily on VSA, whereas naming instructions promoted use of a naming strategy that depended relatively more on VRA. No instructions resulted in use of a verbal/naming strategy similar to that used by naming Ss. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of separate and interactive imagery on the recall of movement patterns.

Contrasted separate imagery instructions with interactive imagery instructions on memory for movement patterns. 48 undergraduates were presented pairs of movement patterns and were instructed to form separate images of each pattern or to form interactive images linking the patterns together. Cued recall performance and the organization of free recall was enhanced following interactive imagery instructions compared with separate imagery instructions. Total free recall, however, was similar for interactive and separate imagery. The advantage of interactive imagery over separate imagery in cued recall was attenuated when Ss were given instructions that imposed restrictions on the formation of their interactive images. Several explanations of the memorial consequences of imagery instructions are considered in light of these results, including I. Begg's (see record 1983-04913-001) organization-redintegration account of imagery instructions. (French abstract) (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age, pacing, and imagery in paired-associate learning.

18 males and 36 females in each of 2 age groups (mean ages, 29 and 69 yrs) learned highly concrete noun pairs. Anticipation and presentation intervals were manipulated (2 vs 6 sec), and there were no, E-provided, or self-generated imagery instructions. Sex of S and presentation interval had no significant effects. Both age groups benefited from imagery instructions, especially self-generated imagery. With self-generated imagery and the longer anticipation time, the old performed as well as the young; with no-imagery instructions and the shorter anticipation time, the young performed as poorly as the old. With the other combinations of instructions and intervals, the young outperformed the old. Thus, the young needed the longer anticipation time only in the no-imagery condition, but the old needed it to benefit the imagery intructions. It is concluded that the old are as capable as the young of generating and using imagery when so instructed, although the old require a longer retrieval time. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fear imagery and the startle-probe reflex.

Blink reflexes to acoustic probes, heart rate, and subjective reports were studied during affective memory imagery. Thirty-six undergraduates memorized 6 pairs of neutral and fearful sentences. After learning each pair, they relaxed and listened to a series of uniform tones, one every 6 sec. A change in tone pitch (higher or lower) cued recall of one of the two sentences. At the first cue tone, groups (n?=?12) were under different instructions: (a) ignore the sentence and relax, (b) silently articulate the sentence, and (c) imagine the sentence content as a personal experience. At the second cue tone, all subjects performed the imagery task. Startle probes (50-msec, 95-dB white noise) were presented unpredictably during relaxation and recall trials. Probe blink reflexes were larger and cardiac rate faster at fear sentence recall than at neutral sentence recall or relaxation. For probe reflexes, this effect was greater for imagery than for nonsemantic recall tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-imagining enhances recognition memory in memory-impaired individuals with neurological damage.

Objective: The ability to imagine an elaborative event from a personal perspective relies on several cognitive processes that may potentially enhance subsequent memory for the event, including visual imagery, semantic elaboration, emotional processing, and self-referential processing. In an effort to find a novel strategy for enhancing memory in memory-impaired individuals with neurological damage, we investigated the mnemonic benefit of a method we refer to as self-imagining—the imagining of an event from a realistic, personal perspective. Method: Fourteen individuals with neurologically based memory deficits and 14 healthy control participants intentionally encoded neutral and emotional sentences under three instructions: structural-baseline processing, semantic processing, and self-imagining. Results: Findings revealed a robust “self-imagination effect (SIE),” as self-imagination enhanced recognition memory relative to deep semantic elaboration in both memory-impaired individuals, F(1, 13) = 32.11, p     

A test of the developmental imagery hypothesis in children's associative learning.

Two samples of kindergartners (a total of 125 Ss) were administered a paired-associate learning task at the beginning and end of the school year, under either regular (control) or self-generated visual imagery instructions. Consistent with previous speculations about the relationship between maturation and the efficacy of imagery instructions on this task, age predicted paired-associate learning performance in the imagery condition even when general ability and amount of formal schooling were controlled. In contrast, age was not significantly related to learning in the control condition. Results support the developmental imagery hypothesis. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Imagery and suggestibility: a test of the Arnold hypothesis.

Two hypotheses were tested: (1) Sway test scores secured when S is asked to imagine falling should show a higher correlation with scores of hypnotizability then sway test scores obtained with the standard Hull "falling" instructions; and (2) there should be a positive correlation between imagery ability and susceptibility to hypnosis. Evidence is presented to contradict the first hypothesis and to support the second hypothesis. 21 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Electroencephalogram and rapid eye movements during free imagery and dream recall.

Monitored electrooculogram, EEG, EMG, and heart rate of 10 male undergraduates under a visual imagery condition (free imagery) and a dream recall condition. Only the dream recall condition was associated with alpha desynchronization. The imagery of the dream recall condition was characterized by more primary process, more kinetic imagery, more frequent episodes of imagery, longer duration of images, and greater heart rate. Both conditions were associated with an equal increase in REMs, which were more characteristic of the waking state than those observed during nocturnal dreams. The differences between the conditions are discussed in terms of the nature of the tasks involved and the evidence of primary process regulation of the imagery in the dream recall condition. (28 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Facial expression and imagery in depression: an electromyographic study

When subjects are instructed to self-generate happy, sad, and angry imagery, discrete patterns of facial muscle activity can be detected using electromyographic (EMG) procedures. Prior research from this laboratory suggests that depressed subjects show attenuated facial EMG patterns during imagery conditions, particularly during happy imagery. In the present experiment, 12 depressed subjects and 12 matched normals were requested to generate happy and sad imagery, first with the instruction to simply "think" about the imagery, and then to self-regulate the affective state by "reexperiencing the feelings" associated with the imagery. Continuous recordings of facial EMG were obtained from the corrugator, zygomatic major, depressor anguli oris, and mentalis muscle regions. It was hypothesized that (a) these muscle sites would reliably differentiate between happy and sad imagery. (b) the instruction to self-generate the affective feeling state would produce greater EMG differences than the "think" instructions, and (c) the "think" instructions would be a more sensitive indicator of the difference between depressed and nondepressed subjects, especially for happy imagery. All three hypotheses were confirmed. The application of facial electromyography to the assessment of normal and clinical mood states, and the role of facial muscle patterning in the subjective experience of emotion, are discussed.     

Empathy and imagery in avoidance behavior reduction.

This therapy analog study was designed to assess the relative effects of therapist empathy and instructed imagination of hierarchy scenes on avoidance behavior reduction. Ss were 30 undergraduate females who indicated "much fear," "very much fear," or "terror" on Item 39 (snakes) during a classroom-administered Fear Survey Schedule II, and who were unable to touch a live snake. After a 45-min treatment session involving (a) mechanical imagery, (b) empathetic imagery, or (c) empathetic conversation, each S completed ratings that included the 16 empathetic understanding items from the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory. Although the communication of differential therapist empathy was validated, behavior change attributable to therapist empathy was minor in comparison to the effects of imagery instructions. Imagery instructions delivered in a relatively unempathetic fashion produced as much avoidance reduction as imagery instructions delivered in an empathetic manner. Unempathetic imagery instructions also produced significantly greater avoidance reduction than the establishment of an empathetic relationship without instructed imagery exercises. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Induction of visual imagery during NREM sleep

In an attempt to induce eye movements (EMs) in non-rapid eye movement sleep, light and sound stimuli were presented to human subjects (at below-waking threshold) during stage 2 sleep. EMs were used as an indicator of ponto-geniculo-occipital (PGO) wave activity. When at least one concurrent EM in response to the stimuli was observed, the subjects were awakened and mentation reports collected. Compared to equivalent control periods with no stimulation, awakenings from the stage 2 stimulation condition showed a higher frequency of visual imagery reports, electroencephalogram alpha activity, and k-complexes. Additional control and stimulation conditions elicited from rapid eye movement sleep awakenings showed no significant differences in the frequency of visual imagery reports. When the amount of alpha activity before stage 2 awakenings from which imagery was reported was compared to that from which imagery was not reported, imagery awakenings showed significantly more alpha. Results can be interpreted as evidence for a link between PGO activity and dreaming in humans or in terms of an arousal-window hypothesis of visual hallucinations.     

The Metrics of Spatial Distance Traversed During Mental Imagery.

The authors conducted 2 experiments to study the metrics of spatial distance in a mental imagery task. In both experiments, participants first memorized the layout of a building containing 10 rooms with 24 objects. Participants then received mental imagery instructions and imagined how they walked through the building from one room to another. The authors manipulated Euclidean distance involved in these imaginary motions: Spatial distance measured in centimeters on the layout was either short or long. Independently, they varied categorical distance: The motions led through one room or two rooms. The time needed to imagine motions and response times to test probes indicated that both Euclidean distance and categorical distance affected mental imagery. The authors discuss the new finding of categorical distance effects in mental imagery and relate the results to earlier failures to find Euclidean distance effects in formally equivalent studies of narrative comprehension. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Electrophysiological evidence for a shared representational medium for visual images and visual percepts.

Systematic effects of imagery on visual signal detection performance have been used to argue that imagery and the perceptual processing of stimuli interact at some common locus of activity (Farah, 1985). However, such a result is neutral with respect to the question of whether the interaction occurs during modality-specific visual processing of the stimulus. If imagery affects stimulus processing at early, modality-specific stages of stimulus representation, this implies that the shared stimulus representations are visual, whereas if imagery affects stimulus processing only at later, amodal stages of stimulus representation, this implies that imagery involves more abstract, postvisual stimulus representations. To distinguish between these 2 possibilities, we repeated the earlier imagery-perception interaction experiment while recording event-related potentials (ERPs) to stimuli from 16 scalp electrodes. By observing the time course and scalp distribution of the effect of imagery on the ERP to stimuli, we can put constraints on the locus of the shared representations for imagery and perception. An effect of imagery was seen within 200 ms following stimulus presentation, at the latency of the 1st negative component of the visual ERP, localized at the occipital and posterior temporal regions of the scalp, that is, directly over visual cortex. This finding supports the claim that mental images interact with percepts in the visual system proper and hence that mental images are themselves visual representations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Imagery elaboration and the recall of French article-noun pairs.

Examined the effect of an imagery-based study technique, called the "hook," on the acquisition of French article–noun pairs. 40 undergraduates with some background in French as a 2nd language studied a list of items under imagery elaboration or under rote rehearsal instructions. Under each type of instruction, half the Ss were asked to use the peg words learned prior to the experiment, whereas the remaining half were not asked to use them. When the English translation equivalents were presented as retrieval cues, recall was substantially better under imagery than under rote instructions. The use of mnemonic peg words had a slight detrimental effect on recall, regardless of the type of instructions received. It is concluded that rote repetition, as prescribed in language textbooks, is not as effective as imagery elaboration for learning French article–noun pairs. (French abstract) (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Imagery and verbal associative latencies as a function of imagery ability.

Examines RTs of Ss high or low in imagery ability under instructions to elicit a verbal associate or arouse an image to concrete and abstract noun stimuli. 16 high and 14 low imagers were selected from a sample of 77 volunteer undergraduates. Latencies were significantly shorter for high than low imagers, for concrete than abstract words, and for verbal than imagery instructions. 1 interaction showed that imagery latencies were shorter to concrete than to abstract stimuli, whereas the latencies of verbal associations did not differ for the 2 types of words; another revealed that the relative superiority of high over low imagers in reaction speed was greater when the stimuli were abstract. Correlational data suggest that verbal associations may be mediated by both verbal and imaginal processes, thus favoring high imagers in both instruction conditions, and that self-reports of imagery ability can reliably predict imaginal behavior. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)