Imagery and divergent thinking: effects of imagery interference, task concreteness and imagery instructions
| dc.contributor.author | Strauss, Mario | |
| dc.contributor.supervisor | Knowles, Don | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-06-11T22:11:11Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-06-11T22:11:11Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 1986 | |
| dc.degree.department | Department of Psychological Foundations in Education | |
| dc.degree.department | Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies | |
| dc.description.abstract | In the first of two experiments, a visual monitoring task, called X-Checking, was tested to determine whether it would interfere with performance on a concurrent imagery-mediated task. Thirty six high-school students were given four tasks: (a) Picture Words, which required the generation of visual images for stimulus words, (b) Letter Tracking, in which subjects indicated the corner positions of block letters from memory, (c) Opposites, an antonym task, and (d) Sound Tracking, in which subjects said the first sound of words in a sentence. Subjects performed these tasks under No Interference (task alone), and concurrently with the X-Checking task presented at two rates for Low Interference and High Interference. On all dependent variables (e.g., task errors, response time} the X-Checking task interfered significantly more with the Letter Tracking task than with the other three. These results were interpreted in support of the claim that the X-Checking task interferes with the sustainment of visual images. Experiment II investigated the effects of imagery interference, task concreteness and imagery instructions on a divergent thinking task. Eighty high-school students were assigned to one of four groups formed on the basis of type of question (Concrete or Abstract) combined with type of instruction (Imagery or Non-imagery). Students responded to the divergent thinking questions under No Interference (question alone) and High Interference (question concurrent with x-checking task). The dependent variables were Fluency scores (total number of responses), Flexibility scores (number of categories used) and X- Checking errors. Fluency scores were significantly higher for Concrete than Abstract questions, and under No than High interference. Flexibility scores were higher under No interference. No differences in X- Checking errors were found between Concrete and Abstract questions. No effects were found for the Instructions variable nor for any of the interaction effects. These results were attributed to task difficulty. No support was found for the claim that sustainment of visual images is critical to performance in these concrete divergent thinking tasks, although the generation of images may play role. These findings are compatible with imagery models that posit distinct imagery processing components rather than an undifferentiated imagery ability. | |
| dc.description.scholarlevel | Graduate | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1828/22376 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.rights | Available to the World Wide Web | |
| dc.title | Imagery and divergent thinking: effects of imagery interference, task concreteness and imagery instructions | |
| dc.type | Thesis |