Runge Matthew S, Cheung Mike W-L, D'Angiulli Amedeo
Department of Neuroscience, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, K1S 5B6.
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, Block AS4 Level 2, 9 Arts Link, Singapore 117570.
Neurosci Conscious. 2017 Apr 22;2017(1):nix006. doi: 10.1093/nc/nix006. eCollection 2017.
Vividness is an aspect of consciousness related to mental imagery and prospective episodic memory. Despite being harshly criticized in the past for failing to demonstrate robust correlations with behavioral measures, currently this construct is attracting a resurgent interest in cognitive neuroscience. Therefore, an updated examination of the validity of this construct is timely. A corpus of peer-reviewed literature was analyzed through meta-analysis, which compared the two main formats used to measure vividness [trial-by-trial vividness ratings (VR) and the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ)]. These two formats were compared in relation to all available behavioral/cognitive (BC) and neuroscience (NS) measures in Phase 1 (3542 statistical observations representing 393 journal articles); and then in relation to all available BC, EEG and fMRI literature in Phase 2 (3624 observations representing 402 articles). Both Phases observed significantly larger effect size estimates (ESEs) for VR than VVIQ, and larger ESEs for NS than BC measures. ESEs for EEG and fMRI were not significantly different in Phase 2, but were greater than BC ESEs. These data suggest VR are a more reliable self-report measure than VVIQ, and may reflect a more direct route of reportability than the latter. Furthermore, both VR and VVIQ are more strongly associated with the neural, than the cognitive and behavioural correlates of imagery. If one establishes neuroscience measures as the criterion variable, then self-reports of vividness show higher construct validity than behavioural/cognitive measures of imagery. We discuss how the present findings contribute to current issues on measurement of reportability; and how this study advances our understanding of vividness as a phenomenological characteristic of imagery, and other forms of conscious experience which do not necessarily involve imagery.
生动性是意识的一个方面，与心理意象和前瞻性情景记忆相关。尽管过去因未能证明与行为测量有强有力的相关性而受到严厉批评，但目前这一概念在认知神经科学中重新引起了人们的兴趣。因此，对这一概念的有效性进行更新审视是适时的。通过荟萃分析对一批经过同行评审的文献进行了分析，该分析比较了用于测量生动性的两种主要形式[逐次试验生动性评分（VR）和视觉意象生动性问卷（VVIQ）]。在第一阶段，将这两种形式与所有可用的行为/认知（BC）和神经科学（NS）测量进行比较（3542个统计观察结果，代表393篇期刊文章）；然后在第二阶段，将其与所有可用的BC、脑电图和功能磁共振成像文献进行比较（3624个观察结果，代表402篇文章）。两个阶段均观察到，VR的效应大小估计值（ESE）显著大于VVIQ，NS测量的ESE大于BC测量。脑电图和功能磁共振成像的ESE在第二阶段无显著差异，但大于BC的ESE。这些数据表明，VR是比VVIQ更可靠的自我报告测量方法，可能比后者反映了更直接的可报告性途径。此外，VR和VVIQ与意象的神经相关性比认知和行为相关性更强。如果将神经科学测量确定为标准变量，那么生动性的自我报告比意象的行为/认知测量具有更高的结构效度。我们讨论了目前的研究结果如何有助于解决当前关于可报告性测量的问题；以及这项研究如何推进我们对生动性作为意象的一种现象学特征以及其他不一定涉及意象的意识体验形式的理解。
