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Brief Articles

Exploring the relation between visual mental imagery and affect in the daily life of previously depressed and never depressed individuals

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Pages 1131-1138 | Received 22 Dec 2016, Accepted 14 Jul 2017, Published online: 17 Aug 2017
 

ABSTRACT

Previously depressed individuals experience disturbances in affect. Affective disturbances may be related to visual mental imagery, given that imagery-based processing of emotional stimuli causes stronger affective responses than verbal processing in experimental laboratory studies. However, the role of imagery-based processing in everyday life is unknown. This study assessed mental imagery in the daily life of previously and never depressed individuals. Higher levels of visual mental imagery was hypothesised to be associated with more affective reactivity to both negatively and positively valenced mental representations.

This study was the first to explore mental imagery in daily life using experience sampling methodology. Previously depressed (n = 10) and matched never depressed (n = 11) individuals participated in this study. Momentary affect and imagery-based processing were assessed using the “Imagine your mood” smartphone application. Participants recorded on average 136 momentary reports over a period of 8 weeks.

The expected association between visual mental imagery and affective reactivity was not found. Unexpectedly, in both previously and never depressed individuals, higher levels of imagery-based processing of mental representations in daily life were significantly associated with better momentary mood and more positive affect, regardless of valence.

The causality of effects remains to be examined in future studies.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all participants and gratefully acknowledge Fionneke M. Bos and all research assistants for their role in the data collection and Casper J. Albers for his advice on power issues.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by ZonMW: The Netherlands association for Health research and Development [grant number 1710002401] and by OOG [grant number 100002035]. This research was funded by [grant number 022.003.038] from de Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, awarded to the Dutch-Flemish Research School Experimental Psychopathology.