Imagine That: The Relationship between Imagery Measures and Imagery Types

Imagery is an important feature of mental simulation, which is central to human cognitive functions from decision making to joint action to language production. Imagery is often used as a mental rehearsal strategy in areas of expertise, such as music, athletics and surgery, but also in movement rehabilitation. Individual imagery abilities may vary by general, modalityunspecific imagery capacity, as well as by imagery types. Within the literature, multiple tests have been used to measure imagery ability in various modalities such as visual, auditory, motor and spatial imagery. Participants (n=301) completed common imagery questionnaires (MIQ3, VMIQ2, BQMI, VVIQ, MASMI, OSIVQ, BAIS, CAIS). Findings suggest that greater reported dance, video game or music experience is related to increased kinesthetic, spatial or auditory imagery ability respectively. Other individual differences were found across subscales of the same modality, suggesting issues with reliability between questionnaires. Further factor analyses may reveal commonalities between imagery types.