Effect of Negative Imaging on Heart Rate and Blood Pressure,as a Function of Image Vividness and Image “Realness”

Abstract

In Experiment 1, sixty-eight subjects completed, first, a thirty-two-trial task measuring image vividness and image “realness,” then, a task measuring heart rate during one minute of negative imaging, one minute of positive imaging, one minute of negative self-talk, and one minute of positive self-talk. In this first study, negative imaging induced elevations in the heart's pulse, whereas negative self-talk did not. In Experiment 2, sixty subjects completed the vividness/“realness” task, a new task involving paper-and-pencil measures of imaging ability, and a task measuring both heart rate and blood pressure during negative imaging, then positive imaging. In this second study, negative imaging induced higher pulse, as well as higher blood pressure and more intense emotion, in subjects whose imagery was more vivid and more “real” and whose image-induced emotion was mostly anger. Also in the latter study, negative imaging induced higher diastolic blood pressure in subjects who were doubly deficient as reality-testers—subjects who not only discriminated their percepts less quickly from their more vivid images but also made fewer correct discriminations.