Implicit Affect after Mental Imagery: Introduction of a Novel Measure and Relations to Depressive Symptoms in a Non-Clinical Sample

Mental imagery can critically influence our emotional state. In contrast to commonly used explicit measures, implicit measures are promising for objectively assessing automatic emotional processes beyond deliberate control. In two studies with non-clinical samples, we tested the Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP) to measure implicit affect induced by mental imagery. In a first study (N = 145), the implicit measure showed that mental imagery elicits significantly stronger negative affect than verbally processed stimuli (F(1, 144) = 3.94, p≤.05, η²_p = 03). In Study 2 (N = 71), we refined the implicit measure and found that mental images can induce implicit affective reactions at least as strong as pictures. Moreover, implicit affect after positive imagery was negatively related to depressive symptoms (r = –.26, p<.05) and explained incremental variance in depressive symptoms beyond explicitly assessed affect. Our studies suggest that the AMP represents a promising measure of implicit affect induced by mental images.