Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-1982

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Psychology

Major Professor

William S. Verplanck

Committee Members

John Malone, Howard Pollio, Dwight Van de Vate Jr.

Abstract

Both the nature of visual memory imagery and the validity of its measures have been largely uninvestigated through the years. Attention in this research was directed semantically and empirically toward clarifying these two aspects of research on visual memory imagery.

In the first experiment, the validity of Marks' "Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire" (VVIQ) was measured by comparing performance of "good" and "poor" imagers, as derived from scores on the WIQ, on a test of the recall of a projected slide. Reliability was assessed by comparing participants' responses on the WIQ twice: once using the original Both the nature of visual memory imagery and the validity of its measures have been largely uninvestigated through the years. Attention in this research was directed semantically and empirically toward clarifying these two aspects of research on visual memory imagery. In the first experiment, the validity of Marks' "Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire" (VVIQ) was measured by comparing performance of "good" and "poor" imagers, as derived from scores on the VVIQ, on a test of the recall of a projected slide. Reliability was assessed by comparing participants' responses on the VVIQ twice: once using the original VVIQ rating scale and once using a similar rating scale. The latter additionally had visual analogs developed from the scaling of slides for each rating scale definition. No evidence was found for either the validity or reliability of the VVIQ.

Participants in the second experiment were given one of two forms of the VVIQ or two forms of an "observation" questionnaire containing the same items as the VVIQ but differing in rating scale definitions and instructions, twice, separated by a week. Results demonstrated that participants answered all the questionnaires alike and consistently rated imagery capability better than observation capability.

The third experiment involved the recall of pictorially presented material. Recall was found to be better for certain areas of the picture than others. No statistically significant differences for the effect of either stimulus clarity or gender on subsequent recall were found.

The final experiment investigated the interrelationships among self-reported visual imagery (as measured on the VVIQ), effectiveness of four directed scanning procedures of a picture, and the recall of pictorially presented material as demonstrated on six performance measures. Scores on the VVIQ were demonstrated to be largely unrelated to any of the recall measures; directed scanning procedures exerted a significant differential effect on visual recall. The evidence in this experiment indicated that the nature of recall was partly visual sense-tied, partly symbolic-verbal, and that recall was more three-dimensional, a "lived-activity", rather than two-dimensional in character.

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