Abstract
This is a planned study, despite its language. It was part of a class. In this proposed study, we examine the relation between vividness of one’s visual imagery and one’s recollection of autobiographical memories. Despite the thousands of citations of David Marks’ 1973 foundational paper of assessing one’s visual imagery vividness, only a few had looked directly at visual imagery in connection with autobiographical memories. This study seeks to fill that gap. We are the first to utilize both the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire and the Autobiographical Recollection Test in a correlational study. We studied 100 college students (49 male, 48 female, 3 non-binary or prefer-not-to-say). We found that scores of VVIQ of Marks correlates to high scores of ART. Moreover, the correlation extends to all aspects of Autobiographical Recollection as modeled by Berntsen et al. T-tests confirm the findings by showing that the effect size is noteworthy: high scorers in VVIQ have higher means of ART scores — and all 7 of ART subscales — than low scorers of VVIQ. These findings suggest, inter alia, further possible explorations into the directionality of the relation of the two constructs, into connection between the processes underlying the generation of vivid imageries and the recollection of autobiographical memories, and into the development of clinical treatments to improve wellbeing.
Keywords: visual imagery, autobiographical memory, vividness, memory recollection, narrative coherence, narrative relevance