PSIQ (Plymouth Sensory Imagery Questionnaire)

Detailed Explanation

The Plymouth Sensory Imagery Questionnaire (PSIQ) measures imagery vividness beyond the visual domain. It asks how vividly one can imagine things in seven areas: vision, sound, smell, taste, touch, bodily sensation and emotional feeling, each on a scale from 0 to 10. The long form has 35 items (5 per area), the short form 21 items (Andrade et al. 2014, British Journal of Psychology, doi:10.1111/bjop.12050). In the original study, vision and sound were on average the most vivid. The questionnaire was developed before the term 'aphantasia' was coined; today it is also used to describe whether weak imagery affects only vision or several senses. Many people with aphantasia also report weaker imagery in other senses (Dawes et al. 2020; Zeman et al. 2020).

Keywords

• PSIQ
• questionnaire
• sensory modalities
• Plymouth
• sensory imagery

Learn more

• Types of Aphantasia
• Scientific Background
• PSIQ – The Plymouth Sensory Imagery Questionnaire

Related Terms

• VVIQ (Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire)The VVIQ is a standardized questionnaire for measuring the vividness of visual imagery. It consists of 16 items where participants rate their ability to visualize on a 5-point scale.
• AphantasiaAphantasia is the inability to voluntarily create mental images. People with aphantasia cannot visualize faces, places, or objects in their mind's eye, although they can recognize and describe them. The term was coined by neurologist Adam Zeman in 2015.
• Mental ImagesMental images are internal visual representations that arise without external stimuli. They enable seeing objects, scenes, or people before the "mind's eye," such as when remembering, dreaming, or planning.