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What is wrong with imagery questionnaires?
Author(s) -
KAUFMANN GEIR
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9450.1981.tb00379.x
Subject(s) - psychology , mental image , interpretation (philosophy) , cognition , rating scale , cognitive psychology , scale (ratio) , social psychology , applied psychology , developmental psychology , psychiatry , computer science , programming language , physics , quantum mechanics
Research evidence is reviewed which shows that the questionnaire method represents a deviant case in imagery research: Whereas experimental techniques consistently produce strong effects for the imagery variable in a large specter of cognitive tasks, research based on imagery questionnaires yields ambiguous and most frequently negative results. Existing explanations of the discrepant findings are critically examined and found to be inadequate. An alternative interpretation is offered, where it is hypothesized that the questionnaire approach to the study of imagery is infected by a serious methodological flaw, due to differences in subjective conceptions of the rating scale employed in imagery questionnaires. Experimental evidence is reported which supports this interpretation.