A STUDY OF IMAGERY IN RESEARCHSCIENTISTS*

ANNE ROENew York City

The data reported here were gathered in the course of a studyof personalities of research scientists as related to vocation The64 subjects of that study are eminent research scientists in the fieldsof biology, physics and physical chemistry, psychology and anthro-pology Most of the men are members of the National Academy ofSciences, or the American Philosophical Society, or both Agerange is 31 to 60, with a mean of 47 7 Further data on the sampleare given m the full reports (10,11,12) The research plan includedintensive interviews on life history, discussion of their work andworking habits, and three tests, the Rorschach, the Thematic Apper-ception Test, and a special test of verbal, spatial, and mathematicalfunctions

During the first year's work, which dealt with biologists, Islowly became aware that their description of working habits veryfrequently implied mental processes quite foreign to my own, andIt occurred to me that these might have some relevance to the prob-lems under investigation. From then on I made attempts to getdefinite information on this point, and also checked it with thesubjects already visited The results of this part of the study areembodied in this paper

It must be explicitly stated that the raw data on thinking proc-esses are highly unsatisfactory They are introspective reports bysubjects of whom few (even among the psychologists) were trainedm introspection, in order to get any information at all it was fre-quently necessary to ask leading questions There are no standard-ized tests or techniques by which anything in the way of objectiveevidence can be obtained The justification for this paper lies inthe fact that, despite the crudeness of the data, psychologically mean-

*This IS part of a study financed by the National Institute of Mental Healthof the United States Public Health Service

460 ANNE ROE

ingful relations do appear, and in the hope that it will stimulate moreresearch m this area

There have been some tests suggested in this field, none of whichIS sufficiently worked out or strictly relevant here, and all of whichwould require more time than could be allotted to this relativelyminor part of the study In 1909 Betts (1) studied types ofimagery, distinguishing spontaneous and voluntary, and the fre-quency and clarity of occurrence for seven sensory modalities Hefound, as have all who have worked with the problem, that mostsubjects can employ a wider range of imagery than they normallydo and that thinking can go on without the intervention of imagery

Griffitts (4 and 5) offered a long senes of tests and evidenceobtained from these, on incidence of types of imagery, relativeclearness and dominance, and so on A major difficulty in all suchwork IS equating intensity ratings of one subject with those ofanother

Here I have not been concerned with availability to any subjectof various t5T)es of imagery, or with their clarity or intensity, butrather with the t)T)es of imagery which he relied upon when think-mg, and specifically when thinking about research problems I madeno attempt to check on eidetic imagery, although this, particularlyin the case of those who rely largely on visual imagery, would beof considerable interest ̂

This sort of inquiry dates back at least to Galton (3), whose re-marks on the subject are worth recalling

To my astonishment, I found that the great majority of the men of scienceto whom I first applied, protested that mental imagery was unknown to them,and they looked on me as fanciful and fantastic in supposing that the words"mental imagery" really expressed what I believed everybody supposed themto mean On the other hand, when I spoke to persons whom I met ingeneral society I found an entirely different disposition to prevail Theconformity of replies from so many different sources which was clear fromthe first, the fact of their apparent trustworthiness being on the whole muchincreased by cross-examination, and the evident effort made to give accurateanswers, have convinced me that it is a much easier matter than I had antici-pated to obtain trustworthy replies to psychological questions Here,then, are two rather notable results the one is the proved facility of obtain-ing statistical insight into the processes of other person's mmds . . and the

'• Nor have I reviewed the eidetic literature since Kluver's 1932 summary of it(<) It would be possible to make some limited comparison but meaningful oneswould require a complete recasting of my data on personahty

A STUDY OF IMAGERY IN RESEARCH SCIENTISTS 461

Other IS that scientific men, as a class, have feeble powers of visual represen-tation There is no doubt whatever on the latter point, however it may beaccounted for My own conclusion is, that an over-ready perception of sharpmental pictures is antagonistic to the acquirement of habits of highly gen-eralized and abstract thought, especially when the steps of reasoning areearned on by words as symbols, and that if the faculty of seeing the pictureswas ever possessed by men who think hard, it is very apt to be lost by disuseThe highest minds are probably those in which it is not lost, but subordinated,and IS ready for use on suitable occasions

In what particular field of science his scientific subjects workedIS not clear, but my data would indicate that this is important Isuspect Galton himself had acute visual imagery, for m spite of hissuggestion about the "highest minds" he goes on to plead eloquentlyfor the further development and utilization of visual imagery

There can, however, be no doubt as to the utility of the visualizing facultywhen It IS duly subordinated to the higher intellectual operations A visualimage is the most perfect form of mental representation wherever the shape,petition and relations of objects in space are concerned The pleasureIts use can afford is immense Our bookish and wordy education tendsto repress this valuable gift of nature A faculty that is of importance mall twdinical and artistic occupations, that gives accuracy to our perceptions,and justness to our generalisations, is starved by lazy disuse, instead of beingcultivated judiciously m such a way as will on the whole bring the bestreturn I believe that a serious study of the best method of developing andutilising this faculty, without prejudice to the practice of abstract thoughtm symbols, is one of the many pressing disiderata m the yet unformed scienceof ^

In 1927 a group of Bntish psychologists discussed the relevanceof visual imagery to the process of thinking (8) without comingto any general conclusion, but the discussion points up the difficultiesof convejnng an understanding of, e g , visualizing, to a personwithout facihty in the process

I asked my subjects in what form thoughts were handled bythem Usually this had to be expanded and then I asked speaficallyabout their use of visual imagery, and if it appeared that they usedIt, whether it was concrete, diagrammatic or otherwise symbolic,three-dimensional, freely manipulable, etc An example of such areport is

I believe that I think m visual images of the object under consideration,in 3 dimensions in patterns I could say that my imagery consistsprobably of a composition of the plants I've seen, the diagrams I've seenI see a forest m my mind and the sand and the clay In thinking on theo-

462 ANNE ROE

retical problems, it's a^am a succession of visual images I even conjureup mental pictures of the Cretaceous and Tertiary and watch how theychange

I also mquired specifically about verbal imagery, which wasconsistently auditory or auditory-motor, and which was usuallydescnbed m such terms as, "It comes awfully close to talking tomyself most of the time " Some of the subjects, j»rticularly theo-retical i^iysicists, rely heavily upon symbolic thmking which is re-lated to, but not strictly, verbal thinking in auditory or auditory-motor terms

I then also inquired about their use of lmageless thinking incases where no reference to this process had been spontaneouslyincluded in their report When specific imagery as accompanimentto thinking was denied, I subsumed under this heading such de-scriptions as the following (there is, to be sure, a hint of kinestheticinvolvement in some of the reports, but it is not at all clear whetherthis IS really sensory rather than lmaginal, there may likewise beaccompanying visceral sensations, I think) "I just seem to vegetate,something is going on, I don't know what it is", "I often knowintuitively what the answer is, then I have to work it out", "it'sa feeling of relationships " A number of the psychologists spokeof kinesthetic imagery as important, I could not determine whetherthis was actually distinct from lmageless thinking as the term istised here

When subjects who primarily use other forms are faced withthe problem of communicating their findmgs, they will then ofnecessity make use of some verbal imagery I have not creditedthem with verbal imagery on this account alone, nor have I includedas users of verbal imagery those who say they can construct visualimages (as most do claim) but who practically never constructthem, so far as they are aware ^ Categorization of the data thus

' It occurred to me that it might be easier to get information on hypnagogicimagery, and that it was worth checking whether this seemed to he the same typeof imagery as that used dunng wakmg hours This information is also difficult toget, but such data as I obtained would indicate greater use of visual imagery inthis stage than in any other, even among those who do not employ it to any extentwhile fully conscious On the other hand there are a nimiber of subjects who in-sist that at such penods it is a "jumble of words" that goes through their minds,these subjects are mostly verbalists There are others who descnbe considerableaction The relation to wakmg imagery is not clear, and seems to me a pointworth further investigation

A STUDY OF IMAGERY IN RESEARCH SCIENTISTS 4 6 3

obtained was very difficult, but the scheme followed here seemed tobe the best for the material treated.

IMAGERY AND SCIENTIFIC FIELD

In Table I, each of 61 scientists (there were 64 in the totalgroup studied, but adequate data on imagery were not obtainedfrom three of them) is listed under every heading to which somestatement about his thinking is relevant The code letters used indesignating each man refer to his special field, according to thescheme given on the Table, the numbers are arbitranly assignedIn the interest of anonymity I have not further subdivided theanthropologists

A pattern emerges clearly from the table The biologists areconcentrated in the visual imagery group So are the experimentalphysicists, while the theoretical physicists more characteristicallyemploy verbal or other symbolizations The psychologists andanthropologists are heavily concentrated in the verbal group (thisincludes all of the cultural anthropologists) That fewer biologistsare recorded as using lmageless thought in addition to imagery maybe due to less adequate inquiry on this point among them—theywere the first group studied I feel quite sure that lmagelessthought, to varying degrees, is almost certainly utilized by most ofthese men Use of it is so frequently combined with use of sometjpe of imagery that it seems justifiable to make the categorizationshown in Table II

Table I P summarizes the data of Table I in larger categoriesSubjects A2, PI , PGl, T P l , E5, Ps3 and Ps9 are not included,since they use rather uncommon combinations The associationshown in the table is statistically significant It cannot be deducedfrom this whether possession of appropriate imagery is conduciveto choice of vocational field or whether work in the field tends todevelop a particular type There are some suggestions in the ma-terial that follows which would lend greater weight to the formersupposition, but the question is clearly open

I would like to suggest also, and very tentatively, that the sub-jects who do not follow the imagery pattern most typical for theirown group are also somewhat less like their colleagues m theirwork and personalities Since all of these men have made original

' All calculations were done by Mr Lassar Gotkin

464 ANNE ROE

TABLE I

MENTAL PROCESSES UTILIZED BY SUBJECTS

VISUAL

Concrete,usually 3-

dimensional

A2A3PI

a P2S P3S" PG22 PG3

CQ P P G 4

ZGlB2B3

EP3EP4EPSEP6

a EP7C EP9g. EPC3

# TP3TP9

TPC4

S EPsS'St EPs9•f An6

J< Lecend A

S ZGa B2 EPS> EPC

•5 TPS TPC

"E ^^'

IMAGERY

Diagrams,geometrical.

etc

PG2PG4ZG4

EP3EP9

EPC3TP3

TPC4

Symbols,Visualized

PGlZG4

B3

EP4EPS

EPC3TP7

TPC4

Formulae,etc Ver-balized

EPSTP4TP6TP9

EPs3

aoatcnny pbynolog]' An antbropotofybounybouniol gnuticaaoological gciwtictbacunolonr. btocbcmutfycxperunmul phyiictexpenmeaul pb^cal cbemutrytbeoreucal pbyiicatbeoreticat pbyncal cbemiatryexpenmenul ptycbotogyclinical. Kiciaror cbild ptycbology

VerbalImagery

(auditory-motor)

A2PIPS

ZG2ZG3

Bl

TP4TPSTP6TP8

EPslEPs4EPs6EPs9

CPslO

CPsllAnlAn2

An3An4An8

ImacelessThought(variouslydescnbed)

AlP4

PGlZG2ZG4

B3B4

EPIEP3EP6EP7EP8

EPOTPlTP6TPS

TPClTPC2TPC4

EPslEPs2EPs3EPs4EPs6

trs/EPs8

CPsll

CPsl2CPsl4

AnlAn3An4AnSAn8

Kmesthetic(not other-

wise de-scribed)

EPs8EPs9

CPslOCPsl4

contnbutions, this difference is not easy to estimate, so far as Ican assess it in their work, it seems to consist largely in manner ofapproach to problems The life histories furnish some indicationthat there were also differences in interests (as shown in spontaneousactivity) in high school and early college days Among biologistsand physicists, very strong interest in the classics—music, art, and

A STUDY OF IMAGERY IN RESEARCH SCIENTISTS

TABLE IIASSOCIATION BETWEEN FIELD OF SCIENCE AND IMAGERY TYPES

465

A. Visual B Verbal C Imageless Totals

BiologistsPhysiastsPsychologists and

Anthropologists

1010

222

X» 11 65

44

1119

P O S - 02

34

613

1718

1954

A includct tub^ecu uiing vuual imagery or thii with vitual lymboUzation or itnageteti thoughts or bothB includes subjects using verbal imagery, or this with verbal symbohzation or tmageleu thought or both.C includes only subjects who describe oo visual, verbal, or other imagery modality and are classed as using

imagdess thought only

literature—were mentioned only by A2, PI , P4, P5, ZG3, E P l ,EP8, T P l and TP9 It will be noted that four of these biologistsare among the six biologists who use verbal imagery and that threeof the physicists are among the four jrfiysicists who report onlyimageless thinking Among the psychologists, interest in literature,or in writing as a career, is very common, and their concentrationin the verbal group has already been noted Ps5 and An6, who usevisual imagery, had no real interest in literature or art, so far asI could determine, at any age

IMAGERY AND OCCUPATIONS OF FATHERS

In view of the general dearth of information on the circumstancesunder which different subjects come to rely upon one type of im-agery rather than another, I looked mto the family backgroundsof these men, with the results noted in Table III. If more than oneoccupation was followed by the father of any subject, that whichhe followed while the subject was growing up is the one recordedOccupation of the father is fairly adequate as a single due to generalsocioeconomic background, but other aspects are of greater interesthere

It does not seem exphcable on grounds of mere comadence thatfive of the six sons of lawyers and all of the three sons of clergymenare in the group with strong verbal imagery So are two of thefour sons of college teachers (their fathers taught music and edu-cational administration, the fathers of the other two taught chemis-try and a combination of economics, mathematics and English)As a check the professional fathers were separated into those whose

466 ANNE ROE

TABLE III

IMAGERY AND OCCUPATIONS OF FATHERS OF SUBJECTS

Occupation of Father

ProfessionalLawyerEngineer (avil, construction)College teacherPhysicianClergymanElementary or high school teacher

or superintendentNewspaper editorAstronomerPharmacistOptometrist

BusinessExecutive or own businessReal estatePurchasing agent, supenntendentClerk, salesman

Skilled laborFarmer

A Visual

1303120

22

03

IMAGERY CATEGORYor SONS

B Verbal

12S1213

000006321001

C Imageless

S12100

100004300112

1 OiStl

3066433

32111

16932216

work would normally require a greater or lesser facility in verbalmanipulation, e g , lawyers, clergymen, teachers, and editors, asdistinguished frc«n physicians, engineers, etc. The resulting tabu-lation IS shown in Table IV Chi-square for a 2 x 2 table usingonly the first two columns is 5 22, and P is 02 — 05 * On psycho-logical grounds there is no difficulty m rejecting the null hypothesisBut there is no evidence here as to whether the assoaation is due

TABLE IVSUMMARY. IMAGERY AND NATURE OF WORK OF PROFESSIONAL FATHERS

Nature of Professionof Father

VerbalNonverbal

IMAOBRY or SoH

Visual

S8

13

Verbal

102

12

Imageless

32

S

TOMIS

1812

30

* If Yates correction is used (this being a borderline case) P falls between 05and 10

A STUDY OF IMAGERY IN RESEARCH SCIENTISTS 4 6 7

to some genetic character or to association with a father who, it isfair to assume, was facile in verbal expression

IMAGERY AND TEST DATA

It seemed worthwhile to examine some of the test data for pos-sible associations with imagery classification For this purposeonly the subjects who could be classified m Table II were used Thisnumber is further reduced by some deficiencies in the test data, but51 subjects were available for most of the comparisons Table Vgives the figures for such test data as seemed to be relevant I haveconsidered only the visual (A) and verbal (B) groups in this com-parison, since both groups contain subjects who also use lmagelessthinking

Several of the subjects remarked that they now make less useof specific imagery than they used to, but differences are not notice-able within this age range Galton suggested the possibility ofchanges with age

The tests of verbal, spatial, and mathematical functions (sup-plied by the Educational Testing Service) are of conventional types,and it may be seen that there are some differences in means Themost marked is in that for the verbal test (antonyms) those whosestatement of typical thinking denotes high reliance on verbal imagerydo very well on this test, although P for the difference is 05 to 10The spatial test (a test of recognition of representations of 3-di-mensional figures rotated through space) seems not to differentiatebetween the groups The verbal-spatial correlation for the totalgroup was + 32 From descnptions of how the test was done, itIS evident that more than one approach is possible Mare (7)found that "spatial imaginative faculty," which I take to be relatedto that involved m the spatial test used, can be compensated con-siderably m some tests by intellectual reflection

The mathematical test (involving reasoning as well as calcula-tion) also shows a difference between means for the groups, butin the reverse direction The numbers in this test are very small,since it was not difficult enough for the physicists Correlation be-tween verbal and mathematical tests for the total group is + 14

Brower (2) found no relation between the intensity value ofimages of various modalities, experienced m response to verbal

468 ANNE ROE

Stimulation, and the Otis Smce the Otis is an omnibus test, thisdoes not contradict the results reported here

TABLE VCOMPARISON OF VISUAL AND VERBAL GROUPS ON VARIOUS TEST DATA

Age

N

rangemean

Rorschach dataR range

mean

T/R

ITS

M

w%

rangemean

rangemean

rangemean

rangemean

Rorschach Dd%rangemean

F%

F'+%

TATlength

rangemean

rangemean

of st(»ies, rangemean

VSMtestV raw score, range

mean

S

M

rangemean

rangemean

A

22

37-5847 4±1 45**

10-8127 6±3 88

22-9746 4±4 79

2-169 8± 79

0-93 1± 48

11-1004 60±4.56

0-299 1±1 79

10-6338 5±3 09

64-10088 5±2 34

5-4714.211.77

8-7252.5±3 93

3-2211.211 12

8-2716 611.89

B

19

31-5847 4±1 65

11-18661 7±11 09

17-6532 112 84

5-1510 5 1 74

1-186 111 05

6-6728 713 75

0-3718 0 1 2 23

16-5939 612 73.

67-10087.112 31

7-4918 612 41

43-7562 214 05

3-1911.411.38

2-2712 511 97

2

2

2

3

3

1

1

1

FOR DIFFEHENCSBETWEEK MEAKS*

/

980

635

671

003

187

510

763

.570

P

< 01

02>P> 01

02 >P > 01

< 01

< 01

.05—.10

< 10

*( u d P are entered only ior mean iiSaamxt with P < 10"•taodxrd ernir of the mean.

A STUDY OF IMAGERY IN RESEARCH SCIENTISTS 4 6 9

Data on the Rorschach were also examined with respect to thisimagery classification Difference between the groups in number ofresponses (R) is very great, as shown in Table IV, with the ver-balists giving many more responses If this merely indicates con-siderably greater verbal fluency in this group, one would expectlength of TAT stories to show a difference also, but such is not thecase I suggest the difference may be due rather to an inhibitingeffect—perhaps subjects accustomed to relying upon visualizationsare more constrained when an unstructured stimulus is actuallypresent, the fact that the visualists use significantly fewer Dd's ispertinent here On the other hand, if this were the case, one wouldexpect some differences in F% and F ' + % (F designates a responsedetermined by form alone, and F '+% the percentage of these re-sponses which are good form) W% (or percentage of responsesusing the whole blot) is markedly higher in the visual group ThisIS probably largely if not entirely a function of the increased Rwhich would not affect F % in the same way This large differencein R makes evaluation of other differences almost impossible, exceptthe T /R or time per response This is significantly longer in thecase of the visual group A recent paper by Raju (9), utilizing aword-association technique for visual and auditory stimuli, sug-gests that fast reactions are seldom accompanied by sense impres-sions

The Items on the Inspection Check List did not appear to dif-ferentiate between these groups, and are not reported here Thetotal number of checks, however, does show a small difference mmeans which is not significant

It would seem, then, that there are differences in mode of think-ing which may be somehow related to socioeconomic background,and which are related to vocation and to certain aspects of test per-formances

My data offer no information on why subjects have come to relyon some modes of thinking rather than others Whether there is ahereditary factor, as Galton suggested, or whether it is largelytraining or experience, and if so how early and by what means themode IS set and how changeable it is are unsolved but fascinatingproblems As to manner or cause of development, leads might beobtamed from cultural anthropology as well as from case histories.

470 ANNE ROE

as has been done here The association with test performance, sug-gested here, could be easily pursued The vocational aspect alsowarrants further investigation, with particular regard to its impli-cations for traimng The relation of imagery to perceptual charac-tenstics of the sort currently being mvestigated by Witkin and hisassoaates (13) is another important line of research. The firstneed, of course, is for some more adequate techniques upon whichto base categorization of subjects DevelojMnent of such techniqueswould open all of these problems to direct investigation and would,fmally, shed much light on the whole problem of thinkmg, particu-larly of "creative thinking "

RETEREKCES

1 BETTS, G H The distribution and funcbons of mental imagery In TeachersCollege Contributions to Education New York Columbia Umv, 1909

2 BKOWER, D The expenmental study of imagery I The relabon of unageryto mtelhgeiKe / gen Psychot, 1947, U, 229-231

3 GALTON, F Inquiries mto human faculty and tts development New YorkMacmillan, 1883

4 GuiFnTTS, C W Fundamentals of vocatiottal psychology New York Mac-millan, 1924

5 GRimrrs, C W Individual differences m imagery Psychol Monogr, 1927,no 172

6 KLUVER, H Eidetic phenomena Psychol Bull, 1932, 29, 181-2037 MARE, H Enige opmerkingen betreffende namtelijk voorstellmgsvennogen,

stmctuunnzicht en de mogelijkheid tot compensatie hierven door mtelligenbe-factoren Ned Ttjdschr Psychot, 1948, i, 277-293 (read only m PsycholAbstr 1949 21S2)

8 PEAR, T H , ET AL The relevance of visual imagery to the process of thmk-mg Brtt J Psychol. 1927, 18, 1-14

9 RAJU, P T A note on imagery types Indtqn J Psychol, 1946, 21, 86-88(read only m Psychol Abstr 1948 4304)

10 R(^ A A psychological study of eminent biologists Psychol Monogr (Inpress )

11 ROE, A A psychological study of eminent physical scientists12 ROE, A A psychological study of eminent psychologists and anthropologists13 WiTKiK, A The nature and importance of lndividtial differences m percep-

bon / Personal, 1949, 18, 145-170