Can my imagination score change over time?

Yes. Many people report that vividness varies with mood, stress, fatigue, and context. Some also report that practice can increase vividness or control. So a single score is a snapshot; repeated measurement can show stability or change.

Is there a separate test for each sense?

Researchers use different tools for different senses—for example, the VVIQ for visual imagery and the BAIS for auditory. Multisensory assessments (like the Psi-Q or Imagination Index) measure several senses in one go so you get a single profile across dimensions.

What's the difference between vividness and control?

Vividness is how clear or strong the imagined experience feels. Control is how easily you can change, hold, or dismiss the image or sound. Some people have high vividness but low control; others have moderate vividness with good control. Advanced tools sometimes measure both.

2026-02-12

How Is Imagination Measured?

Imagination is subjective: it happens inside your head. Researchers and assessors can't look directly at your mental images, so they rely on self-report (your ratings of your own experience) and, in some cases, behavioral tasks. Here's how that works and what it means for you.

Self-Report: The Core Method

Most imagination assessments ask you to imagine specific scenarios and then rate how vivid or clear the experience was. For example, you might be asked to picture a relative's face or imagine the sound of rain, then choose a number on a scale from "no image at all" to "as clear as real perception." Your answers are combined into scores that reflect your reported vividness (and sometimes control) in that sense.

This approach is well established. It's the same family of methods used in tools like the VVIQ (visual only) and in multisensory questionnaires that cover visual, auditory, and other dimensions. Interpretation is clearer when the prompts are specific and when the same type of question is repeated, so that one-off mood or distraction doesn't dominate the result.

Why Self-Report Works

We don't have a reliable "imagination scanner" that reads your mental images from the outside. So the only way to know what you're experiencing is to ask. Decades of research show that when people are asked to rate the vividness of their imagery in a structured way, their answers correlate with behavior—for example, performance on tasks that benefit from mental rehearsal—and with each other over time. That doesn't mean self-report is perfect; it means it's the best available method and that it carries real information. Good assessments use clear prompts, repeated items, and sometimes multiple senses so that a single ambiguous question doesn't define your score.

What a Typical Assessment Feels Like

You'll see a series of prompts. For visual imagery, you might be asked to imagine a sunset, a familiar face, or a room in your home, and then rate how vivid the image was (e.g. from 1 to 5). For auditory imagination, you might imagine a song or a voice and rate how clearly you "heard" it. For motor imagination, you might imagine a movement and rate how strongly you felt it. There are no right or wrong answers—only your honest rating. The whole process usually takes on the order of 10–15 minutes for a full multisensory profile. At the end, you get a snapshot of where you sit on each dimension, and optionally more detailed interpretation.

The VVIQ and Where It Came From

Many people first encounter imagination measurement through the VVIQ—the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire, developed by psychologist David Marks in 1973. It uses 16 items: you imagine specific scenes (e.g. a relative's face, a shop, a sunrise) and rate vividness on a scale from "no image at all" to "as clear as normal vision." A revised VVIQ2 (1995) uses 32 items and a reversed scale so higher scores mean higher vividness. Both versions show good reliability and validity and predict performance on tasks like mental rotation and image recall. The main limitation is that the VVIQ is visual only and self-report: it relies on your judgment of your experience and can mix stable trait with situational state. It also doesn't capture the full range from aphantasia to hyperphantasia in every study. So it's a strong tool for the mind's eye—but only one slice of how you imagine.

One Sense vs. Many

The VVIQ focuses only on the mind's eye. But imagination isn't only visual. Auditory imagination, motor imagination, and olfactory and gustatory imagery are also measurable and matter for learning, creativity, and memory. Broader tools (e.g. Psi-Q and others) assess multiple senses so you get a profile, not a single number. That's why we built the Imagination Index around six dimensions: one score doesn't tell the full story.

How Each Sense Is Measured

Each sensory dimension has its own research tradition and, in many cases, dedicated questionnaires:

Visual — The VVIQ (and VVIQ2) set the pattern: imagine scenes, rate vividness. How we describe visual imagination measurement.
Auditory — Tools like the VAIQ (Vividness of Auditory Imagery Questionnaire) ask you to imagine sounds, music, or speech and rate how clearly you "hear" them internally.
Motor — The VMIQ (Vividness of Movement Imagery Questionnaire) and related tools assess how strongly you feel imagined movements or body position—important for motor imagination and mental practice.
Olfactory and gustatory — Questionnaires such as the VOIQ focus on smell imagery; others target taste or combined flavor. See olfactory and gustatory for research and tools.
Tactile — You imagine textures or temperatures and rate how clearly you feel them. The Psi-Q measures touch as a separate factor from bodily/motor imagery; see tactile imagination.

Multisensory tools (e.g. the Psi-Q, validated in work by Dance et al.) assess several modalities in one go so you get a single profile across senses rather than separate scores from separate studies.

Good interpretation compares your scores across senses and, when possible, over time. A single snapshot is useful; repeated measurement can show stability or change.

Limits of Measurement

Self-report has limits. Your ratings can be influenced by attention, mood, fatigue, and how you interpret the questions; meta-analyses note ongoing debate about how much is stable trait versus situational state. Low vividness doesn't automatically mean "deficit"—it often reflects a different cognitive style. And one dimension (e.g. visual) shouldn't be used to judge your overall imagination. That's why we emphasize a full imagination spectrum and optional deeper reporting, not a single label.

Get Your Own Profile

The Imagination Index assessment uses structured self-report across all six senses. You answer a set of prompts and get a personalized Imagery Profile, with optional paid reporting for more detail and context. The core assessment is free and typically takes around 12 minutes. For a concise guide to the best-supported tools and when to use which, see Best ways to understand your imagination profile.

Further reading: VVIQ – PMC meta-analysis; Marks – VVIQ.