Imagery Vividness (Multiple Senses — QMI)

What it measures

A 35-item condensed version of Betts' (1909) Questionnaire upon Mental Imagery, measuring the clarity of mental images a person can voluntarily evoke across visual, auditory, tactile, kinaesthetic, gustatory, olfactory, and organic sensory domains.

Response format

7-point Likert (1=no image at all, 7=perfectly clear and vivid as the actual experience)

Scale items

• [Visual] the exact contour of face, head, shoulders, and body.
• [Visual] characteristic poses of head, attitudes of body, etc.
• [Visual] the precise carriage, length of step, etc., in walking.
• [Visual] the different colors worn in some familiar clothes.
• [Visual] the sun as it is sinking below the horizon
• [Auditory] the whistle of a locomotive
• [Auditory] the honk of an automobile
• [Auditory] the mewing of a cat
• [Auditory] the sound of escaping steam
• [Auditory] the clapping of hands in applause
• [Cutaneous] linen
• [Cutaneous] the prick of a pin
• [Cutaneous] the warmth of a tepid bath
• [Kinaesthetic] running upstairs
• [Kinaesthetic] springing across a gutter
• [Kinaesthetic] drawing a circle on paper
• [Kinaesthetic] reaching up to a high shelf
• [Kinaesthetic] kicking something out of your way
• [Gustatory] granulated (white) sugar
• [Gustatory] oranges
• [Gustatory] jelly
• [Gustatory] your favorite soup
• [Olfactory] an ill-ventilated room
• [Olfactory] cooking cabbage
• [Olfactory] roast beef
• [Olfactory] fresh paint
• [Olfactory] new leather
• [Organic] fatigue
• [Organic] hunger
• [Organic] a sore throat
• [Organic] drowsiness
• [Organic] repletion as from a very full meal

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Original items by Betts (1909); condensed to 35 items by Sheehan (1967). Alpha .92 (Miller and Marks 1992). Extraction recovered 32 of 35 items—verify complete item list against Sheehan (1967) or subsequent marketing applications (e.g., Bone and Ellen 1992). Items are grouped by sensory modality (visual, auditory, cutaneous, kinaesthetic, gustatory, olfactory, organic) in the original instrument.

Recommended companion scales

Citation

Sheehan, P. W. (1967). A shortened form of Betts' questionnaire upon mental imagery. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 23(3), 386–389.

Keywords