Health, Medical and Neuropsychology Unit, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands.
Department of Music, University of Sheffield, 34 Leavygreave Road, Sheffield, S3 7RD, UK.
Mem Cognit. 2022 Jan;50(1):29-44. doi: 10.3758/s13421-021-01209-7. Epub 2021 Aug 30.
Mental imagery is a highly common component of everyday cognitive functioning. While substantial progress is being made in clarifying this fundamental human function, much is still unclear or unknown. A more comprehensive account of mental imagery aspects would be gained by examining individual differences in age, sex, and background experience in an activity and their association with imagery in different modalities and intentionality levels. The current online study combined multiple imagery self-report measures in a sample (n = 279) with a substantial age range (18-65 years), aiming to identify whether age, sex, or background experience in sports, music, or video games were associated with aspects of imagery in the visual, auditory, or motor stimulus modality and voluntary or involuntary intentionality level. The findings show weak positive associations between age and increased vividness of voluntary auditory imagery and decreased involuntary musical imagery frequency, weak associations between being female and more vivid visual imagery, and relations of greater music and video game experience with higher involuntary musical imagery frequency. Moreover, all imagery stimulus modalities were associated with each other, for both intentionality levels, except involuntary musical imagery frequency, which was only related to higher voluntary auditory imagery vividness. These results replicate previous research but also contribute new insights, showing that individual differences in age, sex, and background experience are associated with various aspects of imagery such as modality, intentionality, vividness, and frequency. The study's findings can inform the growing domain of applications of mental imagery to clinical and pedagogical settings.
心理意象是日常认知功能中非常常见的一个组成部分。虽然在阐明这一基本的人类功能方面正在取得实质性进展，但仍有许多方面不清楚或未知。通过检查年龄、性别和背景经验在活动中的个体差异，以及它们与不同模态和意向水平的意象之间的关联，可以更全面地了解心理意象的各个方面。目前的在线研究在一个样本（n=279）中结合了多种意象自我报告测量，年龄范围广泛（18-65 岁），旨在确定年龄、性别或在运动、音乐或视频游戏方面的背景经验是否与视觉、听觉或运动刺激模态和自愿或非自愿意向水平的意象方面相关。研究结果表明，年龄与自愿听觉意象的生动度增加和非自愿音乐意象频率降低呈弱正相关，女性与更生动的视觉意象呈弱相关，音乐和视频游戏经验与更高的非自愿音乐意象频率相关。此外，对于两种意向水平，所有意象刺激模态都相互关联，除了非自愿音乐意象频率，它仅与更高的自愿听觉意象生动度相关。这些结果复制了以前的研究，但也提供了新的见解，表明年龄、性别和背景经验的个体差异与意象的各个方面相关，例如模态、意向、生动度和频率。该研究的结果可以为心理意象在临床和教学环境中的应用这一日益增长的领域提供信息。
