Cognitive Style and Perception: The Relationship of Boundary Thinness to Visual-Spatial Processing in Dreaming and Waking Thought

The present study investigated empirically whether individuals with thin boundaries as determined by high scores on the Hartmann Boundary Questionnaire (HBQ) [1] demonstrated heightened access to imagistic stimuli than thick boundary individuals. Two independent samples, visual art students and Wall Street brokers, were administered the Rorschach, a sleep and dreaming questionnaire, and a subliminal perception task which involved the presentation of both a subliminal and supraliminal stimulus. As expected, the majority of the visual artists scored thin boundaried and the majority of Wall Street brokers scored thick boundaried on the HBQ. Boundary thinness on the HBQ was positively correlated with Rorschach boundary disruption, higher dream recall, greater reported dream salience, and increased access to subliminal activation. These data are consistent with previous data [2] and support the contention that boundaries are a useful variable in conceptualizing how individuals process imagistically-based emotionally-toned information.