Investigating relationships between trait visual imagery and phenomenological control: the role of context effects

Phenomenological control is the ability to alter experience according to goals, measured by responses to imaginative suggestion. The capacity to create vivid mental imagery has been thought to contribute to generation of experiences following suggestions during hypnosis, but evidence is mixed. Moreover, no study has yet investigated this link outside of hypnosis. Across two studies (n = 639 and n = 66), we tested the relationship between imagery vividness and both non-hypnotic and hypnotic imaginative suggestion scales. Our samples included, for the first time, people lacking voluntary imagery (aphantasics). We also assessed this relationship following commonly used approaches to studying aphantasia (direct recruitment of self-reported aphantasics), versus those designed to minimize demand characteristics effects. We observed a weak positive relationship between imagery vividness and phenomenological control, with aphantasics being slightly lower in this trait than non-aphantasics. However, this effect was exaggerated among self-reported aphantasics, who scored lower on phenomenological control than samples experiencing imagery as well as aphantasics assessed via single-blind procedure. Our results have been certified as computationally reproducible by an independent statistician. We conclude that, while imagery may contribute to responding to imaginative suggestions, it is crucial to follow single-blind recruitment to reduce the effect of demand characteristics.