Glossary

Absent or greatly reduced voluntary auditory imagery; sometimes called sound aphantasia.

Absent or greatly reduced voluntary mental imagery; often used for visual imagery specifically, but can apply to any sense.

The Imagination Index questionnaire and scoring process.

Hearing music internally, e.g. when composing or reading notation.

Mental sound: speech, music, and environmental sounds.

Bucknell Auditory Imagery Scale; measures auditory imagery vividness and control.

One of the basic taste dimensions in gustatory imagery.

One of the six imagery dimensions: Visual, Auditory, Motor, Olfactory, Gustatory, Tactile.

Encoding information in both verbal and mental-image form; can improve memory and recall (Paivio's theory).

Involuntary musical imagery; distinct from voluntary auditory imagery.

The combined experience of taste and smell (especially retronasal); distinct from the five basic tastes alone.

Rehabilitation protocol using motor imagery, e.g. for pain or recovery.

Mental taste.

Texture, pressure, and contact in tactile imagery; distinct from thermoception.

Exceptionally vivid mental imagery in one or more senses; the high end of the imagery spectrum.

Your Imagination Index result: scores and status across the six senses.

The 12-minute, six-sense assessment and the resulting Imagery Profile.

The continuous range from no imagery (aphantasia) to very vivid imagery (hyperphantasia), often considered per sense.

The inner voice or silent verbal rehearsal—thinking in words; overlaps with auditory imagery for speech.

First-person vs third-person visual perspective in motor imagery (MIQ-3).

Single movements vs combined movement sequences in motor imagery.

Feeling of movement in the body during mental rehearsal; distinct from tactile and from watching movement.

0–100 scale for a category, used in reports and dashboard; derived from raw scores.

The experience of simulating sensory information in the mind without external stimulation.

Auditory equivalent of mind's eye: inner sound and voluntary auditory imagery.

Common term for voluntary visual mental imagery.

Movement Imagery Questionnaires; measure motor/kinesthetic and visual movement imagery (MIQ-3: KI, IVI, EVI).

Mental rehearsal of movement: posture, timing, force, and kinesthetic feel.

Involving or measuring more than one sense; used for multisensory profile and assessment.

Musical imagery: melody, rhythm, instruments.

Mental images of things, e.g. an apple or a table.

Mental smell.

Mental images of faces and bodies.

Your score relative to a reference population; e.g. you score higher than X% of people.

Typical or moderate imagery ability; the middle of the spectrum between aphantasia and hyperphantasia.

Mental images of locations and scenes.

Positive vs alerting smell imagery; can differ in vividness and hemisphere activation.

Plymouth Sensory Imagery Questionnaire; multisensory scale for visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, and bodily/emotional imagery.

Sum of item responses before conversion to linear or percentile; shown in dashboard for transparency.

One of the basic taste dimensions in gustatory imagery.

Multisensory/general imagery questionnaire referenced in research and articles.

The dimensions measured by the Imagination Index: Visual, Auditory, Olfactory, Gustatory, Tactile, Motor.

Environmental or non-musical sound imagery.

One of the basic taste dimensions in gustatory imagery.

A sub-dimension within a category, e.g. Visual: Objects, Places, People; Auditory: Sounds, Music.

One of the basic taste dimensions in gustatory imagery.

Mental touch: texture, pressure, and temperature.

Temperature sensation (warmth, cold) in tactile imagery.

Savory taste dimension in gustatory imagery.

Mental pictures: scenes, objects, faces, and spatial layout.

How clear or strong a mental image feels, e.g. on a scale from none to very vivid.

Mental imagery you can summon and control on purpose; what the Imagination Index assessment measures.

Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (Marks, 1973); widely used for visual imagery and aphantasia.