Mental imagery skill predicts adults’ reading performance

Does it kill the imagination dead? The effect of film versus reading on mental imagery.

“…Although such complex imagery is undoubtedly important for aspects of reading comprehension and in generating situation models (Kuzmičová, 2014;Zwaan, 1999), it may be fruitful to first examine more elementary mental imagery processes pertaining to sensory properties of imagined objects. As detailed later, one such task attempting this is the mental comparison task (MCT) that requires participants to imagine and compare two objects with regard to a given modality-specific (e.g., prickly, light) sensory property (see Suggate & Lenhard, 2022).…”

“…One product of reading comprehension is the generation of situation models, which are internal representations of the scenes and SUGGATE events depicted in the text (Zwaan, 1999). The extent to which situation models involve mental imagery or not is unclear, although it is reasonable to assume that for many readers this would be the case (Kintsch, 2018;Suggate & Lenhard, 2022). Although scarce, previous research has found a role for mental imagery in reading performance.…”

“…Second, films in comparison to—for example, language communications or reading text—provide ready-made and rapidly changing images directly to the perceptual system, perhaps without requiring much effortful construction of internal representations (Suggate & Martzog, 2020). In contrast, reading comprehension is thought to require the simulation of text, often in the form of mental images (Sadoski & Paivio, 2013; Suggate & Lenhard, 2022; Zwaan, 2016). This gives rise to the question of whether one type of screen-media, namely viewing film clips, differentially affects mental imagery (e.g., Suggate & Martzog, 2020) in comparison to reading, however, work is needed that tests this idea causally in samples with high reading comprehension skill.…”

“…Anecdotally, many people report experiencing mental imagery while reading, which can range from picturing certain objects or experiencing emotions to reports of viewing or being “in” the story, much like one would view a movie. Currently, it is unknown whether mental imagery is central to reading comprehension or a by-product (Sadoski et al, 1990; Suggate & Lenhard, 2022; Zwaan, 2016), however, it could reasonably be expected that imagery experiences from reading increase the meaning extracted from text (Kuzmičová, 2014).…”

Children’s perspectives on being absorbed when reading fiction: A Q methodology study

“…One exemplary facet of subjective readerly experience is sensory mental imagery. Reading skill and sensory imaging are known to be mutually correlated (Suggate and Lenhard, 2022) and in research with adult readers, imagery is a key dimension of the construct of absorption (Kuijpers et al, 2014(Kuijpers et al, , 2021 which captures deep engagement with fictional narratives. However, common mental imagery interventions aimed at young readers primarily rely on selected visualization techniques (De Koning and van der Schoot, 2013).…”