2022 Volume 19 Issue 1 Pages 21-41
The origin of imagery ability is an important issue that has not yet been clarified. This paper attempts to discuss, from two perspectives, the possibility that individual differences in imagery ability have innate bases.
The first is an attempt to infer hypothetically the innate bases of imagery ability by referring to the findings from behavioral genetic studies for the characteristics of the imagery test scores’distribution, personality factors that relate to individual differences in imagery ability, and the mechanisms on which imagery ability is based.
The second is an attempt in children to confirm individual imagery differences similar to adults and to infer the innate bases of imagery ability based on the findings in children that verify the predictive efficacy of imagery tests on cognitive tasks and events, and findings regarding how children respond to imagery tests. In this paper,imagery ability dimensions, that is, vividness, controllability, preference（imagery type）, and absorption, are considered. Based on the findings from behavioral genetic studies, it can be inferred that imagery ability has innate bases in the following points:（a）Positive skews in the score distributions of vividness, controllability and visualization may indicate the universality of image generation.（b）Personality factors that relate to imagery traits have innate bases: temperaments（combination of neuroticism and version, and persistence）,aesthetic sensitivity, repressive tendency/ego permissiveness for vividness, neuroticism for controllability,openness and self-transcendence for absorption, and also neuroticism for fantasy proneness.（c）Mechanisms on which imagery ability is based have innate bases: large capacity of visual working memory for vividness and preference, neuropsychological bases for vividness and imagery type, executive functions of working memory for controllability, encodings that correspond to imagery type for preference, and strong imaginative involvement and induction of relaxation for absorption. Based on the findings from developmental studies in children, it can be confirmed that individual imagery differences similar to adults have already become actualized in schoolchildren,which suggests the involvement of innate factors in a similar way to adults:（a）For all imagery ability dimensions, imagery tests have predictive efficacy for cognitive tasks and events in children, which contributes equally to adults in identifying mechanisms of imagery ability.（b）Children's responses to imagery tests are very similar to those of adults, especially with the following basic characteristics in common: the cross-modality characteristic of vividness, the loose associations between each of the dimensions, the positive skews in the score distributions of vividness, controllability and visualization, and the normality of the absorption scores. The very expectation that behavioral genetic studies will be conducted on each dimension of imagery ability, and the need for research into individual imagery differences in young children and longitudinal studies are offered.
