The consistency of different manipulations of visual imagery: A methodological study

Abstract

Visual imagery is generally held to have a potent facilitating effect on performance in tasks involving a memory component. However, studies from which this general conclusion is drawn have used widely varying manipulations of visual imagery, and have employed these manipulations in a multitude or experimental situations. Two experiments reported below examined the validity of drawing unitary conclusions about imagery from such varied procedures. The first experiment investigated the mutual consistency of three common manipulations of imagery (varying noun imagery value, varying instructions, and selecting subjects on the basis of differences in visual imagery ability) on subjects' processing in a memory task. This experiment showed that the effects of the manipulation of noun imagery value were unrelated to those of the instructional and imagery ability manipulations. The second experiment showed that the effects of the last two manipulations are not consistent across experimental situations. The methodological import of these findings is discussed.