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Related Experiment Videos

Mental imagery and emotion: a special relationship?

Emily A Holmes1, Andrew Mathews

  • 1Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, United Kingdom. emily.holmes@psych.ox.ac.uk

Emotion (Washington, D.C.)
|December 22, 2005
PubMed
Summary

Imagining unpleasant events, compared to thinking about their meaning, significantly increases anxiety. This suggests a unique connection between mental imagery and anxiety, though its link to other emotions requires further study.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience of Emotion

Background:

  • The relationship between mental imagery and emotional experience is widely assumed but empirically under-supported.
  • Existing research often fails to differentiate between imagery and verbal processing of emotional stimuli.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the specific link between visual imagery and emotional responses, particularly anxiety.
  • To determine if this association extends to the processing of emotionality in external stimuli.

Main Methods:

  • Experiment 1: Participants engaged in either imagery or verbal processing of unpleasant event descriptions.
  • Experiment 2: Four groups processed benign or unpleasant descriptions using either imagery or verbal instructions.
  • Emotionality and anxiety levels were measured using self-report scales.

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Main Results:

  • Imagery of unpleasant events led to significantly higher anxiety and emotionality ratings compared to verbal processing.
  • Anxiety increased specifically after unpleasant imagery, not benign imagery.
  • Emotionality ratings did not differ between imagery and verbal processing after a delay.

Conclusions:

  • Findings support a distinct connection between mental imagery and anxiety.
  • The special link between imagery and emotion may be specific to anxiety, with further research needed for other emotions.