Imagination,Cognition and Personality

Symbolic interdependence is a process that is the outcome of emerging values, beliefs, and meanings between two individuals when developing an intimate relationship. Symbolic interdependence is correlated with relationship quality. However, a potential mediating variable between symbolic interdependence and relationship quality lies in the form of imagined interactions; covert dialogues with relational partners whereby individuals imagine talking with others thereby allowing a mechanism to mentally examine and espouse values while facilitating catharsis. Intimate couples in long-standing relationships and random-paired couples were examined in order to test the degree of symbolic interdependence. LISREL models among intimate couples revealed the partial mediation of imagined interaction between symbolic interdependence and relationship quality compared to alternative models.

The present study investigated whether the length of time subjects are allowed for image formation in image-aided word-memorization protocols influences recall. To this end, we selected 363 high-school students who were presented with a list of 24 words to be learned by the rote method, an image-aided method with normal image, or an image-aided method with bizarre image; the time allowed for image formation was 10, 20, or 40 seconds. Recall was then evaluated immediately after the test and 1 day later. Each subject participated in only 1 experimental condition. Our results indicate that both immediate and delayed free recall were significantly better in the image-aided groups than in the rote groups. Considering the image-aided groups, both immediate and delayed recall were affected by image type used and image presentation time, with recall significantly better in the 40-second group than in the other 2 groups. Significant differences were also detected between the image types.

The current study re-examined the “estimation inflation” effect previously found with performance estimates of motor skills. After viewing a demonstration of a balancing task, 54 participants performed either physical practice, imagery practice, or no practice (n = 18 per group). Self-efficacy ratings were obtained regarding perceived ability to perform the task before and after a test phase where actual performance was measured. Prior to the test phase, the imagery group reported significantly higher levels of self-efficacy compared to the physical practice group. However, imagery practice did not benefit performance as only the physical practice group performed better on the balance task compared to control. Thus, imagery practice and physical practice produced dissociable effects on performance estimates and actual performance. Furthermore, inflated performance expectations elicited through imagery disappeared following the test phase. These results provide further evidence that short bouts of imagery can inflate expectations, but not actual performance of a novel motor task. Once individuals gained authentic experience of the task, the initial misjudgement about performance was replaced with more realistic expectations. Therefore, creating overly optimistic expectations of ability did not hamper future expectations once authentic experience was gained.

Dream recall is naturally a prerequisite for eliciting dream content. Therefore it is of importance to study factors (e.g., personality traits) that might affect dream recall because these factors might bias the content analytic findings in the field of dream research. The present findings indicate that different aspects of dream recall (dream recall frequency, dream recall detail, long-term dream memory) are affected by different factors or at least in different magnitudes by the same factors (e.g., imagination). Whether these variables have a confounding effect on dream content analytic findings using different sampling methods (most recent dreams, diary dreams, and laboratory dreams) is poorly understood, but the present results clearly indicate that there is a need for systematic research in this area in order to increase the representativeness of content analytic findings.

In the present study, 585 British adults attending an assessment center completed a series of tests that included measures of personality (the Revised NEO Personality Inventory), abstract reasoning (the Graduate and Managerial Assessment), and divergent thinking (DT; the Consequences Test). Correlation analyses showed that DT was significantly and positively correlated with abstract reasoning and the Big Five personality factors of Openness to Experience and Extraversion. A multivariate forward stepwise regression showed that DT was significantly predicted by “Openness,” Abstract Reasoning, Extraversion, and Agreeableness. Further analyses showed that DT was significantly correlated with 5 of the 6 Openness facets and 4 of the 6 Extraversion facets (as well as with several facets from Agreeableness, Neuroticism, and Conscientiousness). Overall, however, abstract reasoning and personality accounted for only 7% of the variance in DT, suggesting that these variables are only modestly associated wtih DT in a British occupational sample.

Previous studies using introspective reports have suggested that although mental images can contain elements referring to all sensory modalities, visual images tend to be experienced as most vivid, whereas olfactory and gustatory images tend to be least vivid. However, these studies have typically used arbitrarily selected events and objects as the to-be-imagined stimuli, which may have biased cross-modal comparison. Therefore, in the present study participants were instructed to imagine an event or product of their choice that elicited a conspicuous or characteristic appearance, sound, feel, smell, or taste. The results showed that the types of events imagined differed considerably across modalities. Similar to previous studies in this area, we found that the reported image quality was consistently highest for vision and audition, and lowest for smell.