Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Mental imagery is theorized to play a key role in mood and mood disorders due to the emotional impact of visualizations and biases in the processing of negative versus positive imagery. Although differences in emotional imagery have been linked to mental health outcomes, it is unclear if individuals experiencing emotional distress differ in their baseline ability to generate mental images (i.e., ‘imagery ability’). Recent research has highlighted linkages between imagery ability and facets of trait mindfulness, such as the tendency to observe and describe inner thoughts. Thus, we suspected that individual differences in trait mindfulness may help explain inconsistent findings regarding the relationship between imagery ability and emotional distress. A path analysis revealed that trait mindfulness significantly and fully mediated the relationship between imagery vividness and depression, indicating that mindfulness is a critical aspect of imagery phenomenology, as well as emphasizing the importance of mindfulness to mental health.