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If a mental image is a rerepresentation of a perception, then properties such as luminance or brightness should also be conjured up in the image. We monitored pupil diameters with an infrared eye tracker while participants first saw and then generated mental images of shapes that varied in luminance or complexity, while looking at an empty gray background. Participants also imagined familiar scenarios (e.g., a \"sunny sky\" or a \"dark room\") while looking at the same neutral screen. In all experiments, participants' eye pupils dilated or constricted, respectively, in response to dark and bright imagined objects and scenarios. Shape complexity increased mental effort and pupillary sizes independently of shapes' luminance. Because the participants were unable to voluntarily constrict their eyes' pupils, the observed pupillary adjustments to imaginary light present a strong case for accounts of mental imagery as a process based on brain states similar to those that arise during perception.

BackgroundDisease burden and unsatisfactory treatment outcomes call for innovation in treatments of depression. Prospective mental imagery, i.e. future-directed voluntary imagery-based thought, about potentially-rewarding activities may offer a mechanistically-informed intervention that targets deficits in reward processing, a core clinical feature of depression. We propose that the previously described impact of prospective mental imagery on motivation for everyday activities is facilitated by affective forecasting, i.e. predictions about an individual’s emotional response to the imagined activities.MethodsParticipants (N = 120) self-nominated six activities to engage in over the following week and were randomized to either: (1) an affective forecasting imagery condition (n = 40); (2) a neutral process imagery condition (n = 40); or (3) a no-imagery control condition (n = 40).ResultsAs predicted, increases in motivation ratings from pre to post experimental manipulation were significantly higher following affective forecasting imagery compared to both neutral process imagery (d = 0.62) and no-imagery (d = 0.91). Contrary to predictions, the number of activities participants engaged in did not differ between conditions.ConclusionsResults provide initial evidence for a potentially important role of affective forecasting in prospective mental imagery. We discuss how these findings can inform future research aiming to harness prospective mental imagery’s potential for clinical applications.

The consumption of a food typically leads to a decrease in its subsequent intake through habituation--a decrease in one's responsiveness to the food and motivation to obtain it. We demonstrated that habituation to a food item can occur even when its consumption is merely imagined. Five experiments showed that people who repeatedly imagined eating a food (such as cheese) many times subsequently consumed less of the imagined food than did people who repeatedly imagined eating that food fewer times, imagined eating a different food (such as candy), or did not imagine eating a food. They did so because they desired to eat it less, not because they considered it less palatable. These results suggest that mental representation alone can engender habituation to a stimulus.

Can people evaluate phenomenal qualities of internally generated experiences, such as whether a mental image is vivid or detailed? This question exemplifies a problem of metacognition: How well do people know their own thoughts? In the study reported here, participants were instructed to imagine a specific visual pattern and rate its vividness, after which they were presented with an ambiguous rivalry display that consisted of the previously imagined pattern plus an orthogonal pattern. On individual trials, higher ratings of vividness predicted a greater likelihood that the imagined pattern would appear dominant when the participant was subsequently presented with the binocular rivalry display. Off-line self-report questionnaires measuring imagery vividness also predicted individual differences in the strength of imagery bias over the entire study. Perceptual bias due to mental imagery could not be attributed to demand characteristics, as no bias was observed on catch-trial presentations of mock rivalry displays. Our findings provide novel evidence that people have a good metacognitive understanding of their own mental imagery and can reliably evaluate the vividness of single episodes of imagination.

BackgroundPositive prospective mental imagery plays an important role in mental well-being, and depressive symptoms have been associated with difficulties in generating positive prospective mental images (PPMIs). We used a mobile app to gather PPMIs generated by young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic and analyzed content, characteristics, and associations with depressive symptoms.MethodsThis is a secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial with 95 healthy young adults allocated into two groups (intervention and control). Participants used the mobile app decreasing mental health symptoms for seven consecutive days. Fifty participants in the intervention group reported PPMIs at least three times per day using a mobile app inducing PPMI generation. We categorized entries into themes and applied moderation models to investigate associations between PPMI characteristics and depressive symptoms.ResultsWe distinguished 25 PPMI themes. The most frequent were related to consuming food and drinks, watching TV/streaming platforms, and doing sports. Vividness and ease of generation of PPMIs, but not their anticipation, pleasure intensity or number of engagements with the app were associated with fewer depressive symptoms.ConclusionsWe identified PPMI themes in young adults and found significant negative associations between depressive symptoms and vividness and generation ease of PPMIs. These results may inform prevention and intervention science, including the design of personalized interventions. We discuss implications for future studies and treatment development for individuals experiencing diminished PPMI.

The ability to introspect about self-performance is key to human subjective experience, but the neuroanatomical basis of this ability is unknown. Such accurate introspection requires discriminating correct decisions from incorrect ones, a capacity that varies substantially across individuals. We dissociated variation in introspective ability from objective performance in a simple perceptualdecision task, allowing us to determine whether this interindividual variability was associated with a distinct neural basis. We show that introspective ability is correlated with gray matter volume in the anterior prefrontal cortex, a region that shows marked evolutionary development in humans. Moreover, interindividual variation in introspective ability is also correlated with white-matter microstructure connected with this area of the prefrontal cortex. Our findings point to a focal neuroanatomical substrate for introspective ability, a substrate distinct from that supporting primary perception.

Mental imagery typically involves the voluntary retrieval and representation of a sensory memory, but it can also sometimes be involuntary. Despite mental imagery having been a topic of interest for thousands of years, the methodological tools necessary to scientifically probe its underlying mechanisms have only recently been developed. New methods in behavioral psychophysics (the binocular-rivalry technique) and brain imaging (decoding techniques) have been developed and utilized to uncover many new insights into the mechanisms and brain areas involved in mental imagery. These insights are igniting further empirical and theoretical work into imagery itself as well as its role in many high-level cognitive processes and mental disorders.

Music can shape the vividness, sentiment, and content of directed mental imagery. Yet, the role of specific musical features in these effects remains elusive. One important aspect of human musical performances is the presence of micro-variations—small deviations in timbre, pitch, and timing, driven by motor and attentional processes. These variations enhance perceived “naturalness” compared to mechanical playing without such variations. Here, we investigated whether random micro-variation, as opposed to mechanical playing, affects mental imagery characteristics. One hundred participants performed a directed mental imagery task where they imagined a journey, accompanied either by drumming with micro-variation, drumming without micro-variation, or silence. Participants rated the vividness, distance and time travelled of their imagined content, alongside free-format content responses. Bayesian multilevel regression model showed that repetitive quasi-isochronous drumming enhanced mental imagery vividness, with a stronger effect observed when the drumming contained random micro-variation. Drumming with random micro-variation also increased imagined distance and time travelled compared with silence. Furthermore, individual traits in absorption, ability to imagine vividly, and level of musical training interacted with auditory conditions to further shape mental imagery characteristics. The findings have implications for the use of music to support imagery in creative, recreational, and therapeutic settings.

Upending our perception of employment, a surprising investigation into the mystical nature of our daily toil. Dreamwork is a book about the ideas, dreams, dreads, and ideals we have about work. Its central argument is this: Although we depend on the idea of work for our identity as humans, we feel we must disguise from ourselves the fact that we do not know what work is. There is no example of work that nobody might, under some circumstances, do for fun. All work is imaginary—which is not to say that it is simply illusory, but rather that, to count as work, it must be imagined to be work. In other words, a large part of what we mean by working is this work of imagining. Work is therefore essentially mystical—just the opposite of what it is taken to be by all of us spending our days at desks, behind cash registers, and in factories. Delving into this complex mythos, Dreamwork looks in turn at worries about whether or not work is hard; the importance of places of work; the meanings of hobbies, holidays, and sabbaths; and the history of dreams of redeeming work.

BackgroundMental imagery can help people have meaningful experiences and improve their mental and physical health. This study aimed to explore the intervention effect of positive mental imagery training (imagery cognitive bias modification) on the negative emotions of Chinese college students with at least mild symptoms of depression.MethodsA 2 (group: training group, non-training group) by 4 (time: pre-, post-, 1-week follow-up, and 6-week follow-up) mixed design was used in this study, with the group as the between-participants factor and the time as the within-participants factor. Forty-nine participants were pseudo-randomly assigned to either the imagery training group (received 7 days of training) or the non-training group (continued their daily lives as usual). Both groups were followed up at 1 week and 6 weeks after the intervention via online questionnaires. Repeated-measures analyses of variance were conducted using baseline, post-training (all participants, N = 49), and follow-up (N = 42) data.ResultsCompared to participants in the no training group, participants in the positive mental imagery training group showed improvements in depression symptoms and trait anxiety; as well as the likelihood rating of positive imagery across the subsequent three assessments. The vividness of positive imagery post-training also improved. However, there was no significant between-group difference in negative interpretation bias.ConclusionsPositive mental imagery training effectively improved negative emotions and anxiety in adults with depression symptoms after 1 week of training, with these effects lasting for at least 6 weeks, indicating that this type of training should be further explored in China.