This study was designed to dissociate the effects of vividness from those of imageability (and other imagery-related properties) of nouns. Mental image latencies and vividness ratings were collected for nouns of common objects with known imageability, concreteness and meaningfulness norms [1]. Two subsets of nouns were identified with vividness and, alternatively, imageability approximately constant; then, the effects of all noun-properties were examined using hierarchical multiple regression. Image latency was strongly related to vividness when noun imageability was controlled (Analysis 1). Conversely, latency was strongly related to imageability for nouns eliciting approximately same vividness ratings (Analysis 2). In both analyses, concreteness and meaningfulness were redundant. Imageability and vividness are dissociable and can be used to investigate distinct working memory and neurocognitive components of imagery.
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