example, they are subject to contamination from response sets such as social desirability.
Put simply, most people are eager to portray themselves as having a good or vivid
imagination regardless of their true skills in that area. For this reason, objective tests of
imagery have been developed. Thus the controllability dimension of a visual mental
image (which refers to the ease and accuracy with which it can be transformed
symbolically) can be measured objectively by requesting people to complete tasks which
are known to require visualisation abilities. For example, in the “Group Mental Rotations
Test” (GMRT; Vandenberg and Kuse, 1978), people have to make judgements about
whether or not the spatial orientation of certain three-dimensional target figures matches
(i.e., is congruent with) or does not match (i.e., is incompatible with) various alternative
shapes. The higher people’s score is on this test, the stronger are their image control
skills. For a more comprehensive account of the history of imagery measurement, as well
as of the conceptual and methodological issues surrounding it, see A.Richardson (1995)
and J.T.E.Richardson (1999).
Let us now turn to the second question guiding this section. What progress has been
made in measuring imagery processes in athletes? In general, two types of instruments
have been developed in this field: tests of athletes’ imagery abilities and tests of their
imagery use (see reviews by Hall, 1998, and Moran, 1993). Although an exhaustive
review of these measures lies beyond the scope of this chapter, some general trends and
issues in imagery measurement may be summarised as follows.
First, perhaps the two most popular and psychometrically impressive tests of imagery
skills in athletes are the “Vividness of Movement Imagery Questionnaire” (VMIQ; Isaac,
Marks and Russell, 1986) and the revised version of the “Movement Imagery
Questionnaire” (MIQ-R; Hall and Martin, 1997). The VMIQ is a twenty-four-item
measure of “visual imagery of movement itself and imagery of kinaesthetic sensations”
(Isaac et al., 1986, p. 24). Each of the items presents a different movement or action to be
imagined (e.g., riding a bicycle). Respondents are required to rate these items in two
ways: “watching somebody else” and “doing it yourself”. The ratings are given on a five-
point scale where 1=“perfectly clear and as vivid as normal vision” and 5=“no image at
all”. Although not extensive, available evidence suggests that the VMIQ satisfies
conventional standards of psychometric adequacy (Hall, 1998). For example, Eton,
Gilner and Munz (1998) reported that it had high internal consistency coefficients (e.g.,
0.97 for the total scale) and a test-retest reliability score of 0.64 (for the “other” sub-
scale) to 0.80 (for the “self “score) over a two-week interval. Turning to the MIQ-R, this
test is especially interesting for sport researchers because it was designed to assess
individual differences in kinaesthetic as well as visual imagery of movement. Briefly, this
test contains eight items which assess people’s ease of imaging specific movements either
visually or kinaesthetically. In order to complete an item, respondents must execute a
movement and rate it on a scale ranging from “1” (meaning “very hard to see/feel”) to 7
(meaning “very easy to see/feel”). Imagery scores are calculated as separate sums of the
two sub-scales of visual and kinaesthetic imagery skills. Available evidence indicates that
the MIQR displays adequate reliability and validity (see review by Hall, 1998).
The second point to note about imagery assessment in sport is that the “Sport Imagery
Questionnaire” (SIQ; Hall, Mack, Paivio and Hausenblas, 1998) is an increasingly
popular and reliable tool for measuring imagery use in athletes. The SIQ is a thirty-item
self-report scale which asks people to rate on a seven-point scale (where 1=“rarely” and
Using imagination in sport: mental imagery and mental practice in athletes 143