Individual differences in imagery and the psychophysiology of emotion

Abstract

Abstract The experiment examined the relationship between individual differences in imagery ability and physiological activity during affective and non-affective imagery. Self-described good and poor imagers were assessed before and after a training procedure which encouraged somatovisceral involvement in imagery. The two groups of imagers were indistinguishable on a variety of personality measures, including general intelligence, social desirability bias, and report of somatic or visceral anxiety. Picture-memory recall performance also failed to differentiate the two groups. In contrast, imagery of standard affective and action-oriented scripts produced significantly greater physiological activity for good imagers than for poor imagers, particularly after training. For good imagers, pattern of physiological activity vaned with content of imagery script (action, fear, and anger), suggesting that training amplified intrinsic, emotion-specific response dispositions. Whereas poor imagers were generally unresponsive to the standard emotional scripts, training did enhance their reaction to personally relevant affective images. Results were interpreted as supporting a view of emotional imagery which emphasises the role of response information in image processing.

Keywords

Affiliated Institutions

• University of Florida US
• York College of Pennsylvania US
• University of Wisconsin–Madison US
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign US
• University of Washington US
• University of Alabama at Birmingham US

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