(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/acp.858 Intuitions and Introspections about Imagery: The Role of Imagery Experience in Shaping an Investigator’s Theoretical Views

Early in a scientific debate, before much evidence has accumulated, why are some scientists inclined toward one position and other scientists toward the opposite position? We explore this issue with a focus on scientists ’ views of the ‘imagery debate ’ that unfolded in Cognitive Science during the late 1970s and early 1980s. We examine the possibility that, during the early years of this debate, researchers ’ views were shaped by their own conscious experiences with imagery. Consistent with this suggestion, a survey of 150 psychologists, philosophers, and neuroscientists showed that those who experienced their own visual imagery as vivid and picture-like recall being more sympathetic in 1980 to the view that, in general, images are picture-like. Similarly, those who have vivid images and who regularly use their images in cognition were more inclined to believe that issues of image vividness deserve more research. Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. It is the nature of science that theoretical disputes are usually resolved through the collection of data—data that favour one theoretical position over another, or perhaps data that demand a recasting of the scientific questions at issue. To be sure, other factors beyond the data do play a role (Barber, 1961; Brewer and Chin, 1994; Kuhn, 1963), but there is no question that the collection and scrutiny of evidence is central to the scientific process