The Effects of Internal and External Imagery on Muscular and Ocular Concomitants

Abstract

Mahoney and Avener's (1977) categorization of imagery into “internal” (first-person visual and kinesthetic) and “external” (third-person visual) perspectives suggested a viable means to quantifiably test Jacobson's (1931) finding that “visualizing” a biceps “curl” produced only ocular responses while “muscularly imagining” the same movement just generated localized biceps activity. A significant within-subjects main effect (p < .001) revealed that the internal imagery condition produced more integrated biceps activity than the external imagery condition as predicted by Lang's (1979) bio-informational theory of emotional imagery.