Department of Health Sciences Faculty Articles

The Relative Interference in Imaginal and Attentional Processing by a Secondary Imagery Task

Document Type

Article

Publisher

American Research Institute for Policy Development

ISSN

2374-2380

Publication Date

1995

Keywords

Cognitive Resources, Imagery Tasks, Reaction Time, Automatic Stimuli, Controlled Stimuli

Abstract

Participants (N = 30) were given primary attentional and imagery tasks in combination with secondary imagery tasks to determine the degree to which attention and imagery share cognitive resources. Inference by the secondary task was measured through reaction time to questions about primary and secondary stimuli. The stimuli were either automatic or controlled in that there was either one or multiple forced perspective to test 2 levels of attention (Weichselgartner & Sperling, 1987). The stimuli were either present or not during questioning to test attention and imagery, respectively. Significant interactions were found between task level and attention level, as well as between attention level and presence of stimulus during questioning. During the primary task, responding to the controlled questions took longer than the automatic questions; the opposite was true during the secondary task. In the automatic conditions, questions given while the stimuli were present took less time to respond to than those given when the stimuli were not present. Thus, although attention and imagery are believed to share cognitive processes, there are qualitative differences.

Volume

9

First Page

112

Last Page

121

Disciplines

Medicine and Health Sciences

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