Imagination,Cognition and Personality

Looking first at the nature of dreams as studied in the laboratory during the last thirty years, this article (Part I) considers methods of knowing dreams and what is meant by dream interpretation. Within the context of current research in cognitive science, it is proposed that at least some dreams are generated by a regulatory system seeking to establish organismic balance, and in this sense fulfill a problem-solving function. A five-step method designed to facilitate dream understanding is sketched: it is a programmatic procedure that helps users recover aspects of their own dream formation process and probes the regulatory system by helping users discern the problem(s) a dream may be attacking. In Part II, the method will be illustrated and evaluated through the analysis of one dream in extenso.

This article analyzes Pinter's room-symbolism as a form of imagery deriving from the earliest stages of the mother-infant relationship, antedating the process of separation-individuation. Such imagery, conceived as forming an integral part of cognitive and adaptive skills, serves as a spatial analogue of secure/insecure containment by the mother. Feelings of insecurity are engendered by the child's perception of the mother as a dangerous or non-gratifying object. The symbolic representation of the child's conflicted feelings, as interpreted by Pinter, is a room or house that fails to provide protection against invasive forces. The result of such vulnerability, explored with great ingenuity by Pinter, is the blocking of major ego functions and resources for coping. The invasive forces, resulting from projected aggressive drives, overwhelm Pinter's feckless protagonists, who yearn for the physical reparation of the mother's “destroyed” body. The playwright's anti-heroes and their antagonists alike represent the divided self, in which the aggressors act on behalf of an archaic, punitive superego. Such a superego is traceable to early defects of ego development in which perceptual and cognitive distortions play an important role.

Mental imagery has recently emerged as an alternative to traditional laboratory stressors in psychophysiological studies. The present study assessed physiological responsivity to fearful, neutral, and racially noxious image scenes in sixty-two black women. In addition, the utility of several personality variables for predicting physiological changes in response to the scenes was assessed. Thirty-one vivid and thirty-one non-vivid imagers participated in a preliminary session during which they were given progressive relaxation training and were instructed to image an event on cue. On a separate occasion physiological responses to the scenes were assessed. Findings indicated that the fearful and racially noxious scenes elicited comparable increases in corrugator and heart rate activity. The neutral scene had a less pronounced effect on heart rate and corrugator activity than the other scenes. Results of multiple regression analyses in which personality variables served as predictors of physiological activity revealed that certain dimensions of the Type A coronary prone behavior pattern and trait anxiety were significant predictors of physiological reactivity. These predictors were most effective where a conceptual link between the content of the scenes and the specific dimensions was identifiable. The results suggest that the imagery paradigm is useful for studying the effects of complex social stressful situations akin to those growing out of racism. They also underscore the potentially facilitory role personality assessment may have in pinpointing sources of variability in response to this form of laboratory stress.

A new scale, the Environmental Support for Fantasy Scale (ESFS) was developed to assess factors within the home environment which correlate with measures of children's fantasy. The sample consisted of forty preschool children and their parents. Three scales were derived from the ESFS; a measure of parental attitude, parental control, and environmental fantasy stimulation. A significant first root canonical correlation was found between the three scales of the ESFS and three measures of children's imagination. Parents who provided a role model, were supportive of their children's fantasies, exerted less control over their children's time and activities, and used learning approaches to discipline had children who were more frequent and fanciful fantasizers.

Various domains of chronic predispositions in information processing have been studied from different perspectives. For example, strict experimentally-based information processing paradigms stem from a different research tradition than daydreaming styles. This study considers the association between these domains by examining the interrelations between two-self report measures of chronic information processing. One measure is the Need for Cognition, developed in the social cognition literature to study individual differences in chronic tendencies to utilize information. The second measure, the Short Imaginal Processes Inventory, is a measure of daydreaming style. Results show that these measures are related. A single bipolar dimension measuring affective/evaluative domains in information processing underlying the common properties of both measures is identified. Extensions of this research to domains in clinical and social psychology are discussed.

The use of photic driving to induce an altered state of consciousness (ASC) is investigated and discussed in this exploratory study. Four male subjects were exposed to photic stimulation at the frequencies of 18, 10, and 6 c/s, and were required to provide a verbal report regarding their mentation at the end of each block of photic stimulation. Individual differences were apparent at both cognitive and electrophysiological levels. Two subjects experienced ASCs, reported visual imagery induced by the photic stimulation, and exhibited a driving response to the stimulation at 10 c/s. It was tentatively concluded that the successful induction of a driving response at 10 c/s is conducive both to visual imagery and to the induction of an ASC.