Editorial: Mental Imagery in Clinical Disorders

Editorial on the Research Topic Mental Imagery in Clinical Disorders Mental imagery refers to the simulation or recreation of perceptual experience across different sensory modalities (1, 2). The study of mental imagery has clinical relevance because such imagery has been increasingly shown to play a key role across various psychological disorders (3, 4). The current research topic presents a diverse range of cutting-edge papers focusing on investigating the underlying mechanisms and/or treatment interventions associated with mental imagery in clinical disorders. We are very pleased with the final result, which comprises 15 articles drawn from the fields of psychiatry, psychology, and neuroscience. This topic provides a unique collection of articles that combine different perspectives from the field of clinical psychology with more diverse perspectives drawn from the wider literature on mental imagery. One central theme across the topic is articles that have focused on the role of mental imagery in memories for negative events. Over the last decade, there has been a considerable impact in this area of, for example, working memory theory and dual task methodology [e.g., Ref. (5, 6)] on procedures associated with reducing intrusive cognitions. Two articles consider the potential limitations of this approach. van Veen et al. report two studies that examine how the speed of eye movement (EM) interacts with the emotionality and vividness of negative memories. Although a high rate of EM was associated with significant reduction in emotionality and vividness, contrary to expectation, the rate of EM did not interact with the extent of reported image vividness. The study reported by van Schie et al. examines the effect of EM on the retrieval of cued negative images acquired through word–image paired association. Dual-task EMs were found to have no effect on both self-rated vivid-ness and emotionality of the images or latency responses. These studies highlight the importance of achieving greater understanding of the complex relationship between increased working memory load and selective interference effects on trauma-related imagery. The research article by Nelis et al. takes a different but equally important approach by examining the recall of positive rather than negative life events. Two studies are reported in which participants are asked to retrieve positive autobiographical memories followed by induction of either image-or verbal-based processing styles. A concrete/imagery-based processing style was associated with a larger increase in positive effect in comparison to verbal processing, which is consistent with the perspective that mental imagery can serve …