The psychophysics of imagery

A series of experiments considers the extent to which the interrelations am ong subjective magnitudes aroused by images corresponds to those for subjec tive magnitudes aroused by physical stimuli. In Experiment 1, 68 undergradu ates typed phrases in response to graded categories regarding the imagined magnitude of lights, sounds, and smells. In Experiment 2, 5 undergraduates and, in Experiment 3, 3 graduate students then magnitude estimated the imag e intensity aroused by each of these stimulus phrases. In Experiments 4 and 5, the same subjects performed cross-modality matches between phrases arou sing images for different attributes (light, sound, and smell). Statistical analysis indicates that estimates based on images display many of the same patterns as those based on physical stimuli. The major exception involves sequence effects, present for actual stimuli but not for images.