Abdelrahman Noha, Melcher David, Ripollés Pablo
Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, USA.
Department of Psychology, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Psychophysiology. 2025 Jul;62(7):e70100. doi: 10.1111/psyp.70100.
Visual imagery is thought to act as an "emotional amplifier," potentially contributing to narrative engagement. To examine this, we conducted two experiments in which participants were presented with emotionally charged audio and video story excerpts. Experiment 1 included 84 online participants from the general population, while Experiment 2 involved 25 individuals with aphantasia (the inability to generate mental images) and 25 controls. In both experiments we assessed narrative engagement behaviorally using the Narrative Engagement Questionnaire (NEQ), while for Experiment 2 we also measured physiological responses. We found a main effect of modality, with video stimuli scoring higher across all NEQ subscales in both experiments. Notably, in experiment 2, a significant group effect on emotional-but not cognitive-engagement emerged, with aphantasics reporting less emotional engagement than controls. Moreover, controls experienced higher heart rate during audio narratives, while aphantasics had a similar heart rate across both modalities. Our results suggest that the enhanced physiological response seen in non-aphantasics during audio narratives is driven by the mental effort required to generate imagery. Furthermore, this capacity for visual imagery appears to enhance emotional engagement with stories. This highlights mental imagery's role in both subjective and physiological responses, emphasizing distinct cognitive processes during narrative engagement.
视觉意象被认为起着“情绪放大器”的作用，可能有助于增强对叙事的投入度。为了对此进行研究，我们进行了两项实验，让参与者观看充满情感的音频和视频故事片段。实验1招募了84名来自普通人群的在线参与者，而实验2涉及25名患有phantasia（无法产生心理意象）的个体和25名对照组。在两项实验中，我们使用叙事投入问卷（NEQ）从行为上评估叙事投入度，而对于实验2，我们还测量了生理反应。我们发现了模态的主效应，在两项实验中，视频刺激在所有NEQ子量表上的得分都更高。值得注意的是，在实验2中，出现了对情绪投入而非认知投入的显著组效应，患有phantasia的个体报告的情绪投入比对照组少。此外，对照组在听音频叙事时心率较高，而患有phantasia的个体在两种模态下的心率相似。我们的结果表明，非患有phantasia的个体在听音频叙事时出现的增强的生理反应是由生成意象所需的心理努力驱动的。此外，这种视觉意象能力似乎增强了对故事的情绪投入。这突出了心理意象在主观和生理反应中的作用，强调了叙事投入过程中不同的认知过程。
