Eötvös Loránd Research Network - Eötvös Loránd University - Pázmány Péter Catholic University Adolescent Development Research Group, Budapest, Hungary.
Eötvös Loránd Research Network - Eötvös Loránd University - Pázmány Péter Catholic University Adolescent Development Research Group, Budapest, Hungary; Laboratory for Psychological Research, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest, Hungary.
Cortex. 2022 Sep;154:365-374. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2022.06.011. Epub 2022 Jul 9.
The capacity to elicit vivid visual mental images varies within an extensive range across individuals between hyper- and aphantasia. It is not clear, however, whether imagery vividness is constant across the lifespan or changes during development and later in life. Without enforcing the constraints of strict experimental procedures and representativity across the entire population, our purpose was to explore the self-reported level of imagery vividness and determine the relative proportions of aphantasic/hyperphantasic participants in different age groups. Relying on the frequently used Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire, we collected data on a random sample of 2252 participants between the ages of 12-60 years. We found a novel developmental pattern that describes a declining ability to elicit vivid visual mental images in the group averages of different age groups from adolescence to middle age. This effect involves both a decreasing proportion of individuals with vivid visual imagery vividness and an increasing proportion of individuals with low imagery vividness as maturation (based on bone age assessments in adolescents) and ageing progress. These findings may shed some light on the developmental mechanisms of our internal, stimulus-independent processes, and might also help to determine genetic, maturational, and age-dependent factors in the cases of hyper- and aphantasia.
个体之间的生动视觉意象能力在超想象力和无想象力之间存在广泛的差异。然而，目前尚不清楚意象生动性是否在整个生命周期中保持不变，还是在发展过程中和以后的生活中发生变化。在不强制严格的实验程序和代表性限制的情况下，我们的目的是探索自我报告的意象生动性水平，并确定不同年龄组中无想象力/超想象力参与者的相对比例。我们依赖于常用的视觉意象生动性问卷，收集了 2252 名年龄在 12 至 60 岁之间的随机样本的数据。我们发现了一种新的发展模式，描述了不同年龄组的群体平均值中，从青春期到中年，产生生动视觉心理意象的能力下降。这种效应涉及到具有生动视觉意象生动性的个体比例下降，以及具有低意象生动性的个体比例增加，这是随着成熟（基于青少年的骨龄评估）和衰老的进展。这些发现可能有助于揭示我们内部、刺激独立过程的发展机制，并且还可能有助于确定超想象力和无想象力病例中的遗传、成熟和年龄依赖性因素。
