Source status: research term from cognitive science and affective neuroscience.
Mental imagery is sensory-like experience without the corresponding external stimulus. It may be visual, auditory, tactile, spatial, movement-based or multisensory; some people experience little or no voluntary visual imagery.
Imagery can influence emotion, attention, expectation and rehearsal while remaining distinguishable from perception through ordinary reality-monitoring processes. It does not guarantee behavioural change or make an imagined outcome occur.
Different from: active imagination. Mental imagery is a broad human capacity. Active imagination is a specific Jungian way of engaging with spontaneous inner material.
Related: Imagination; Active Imagination; The Circle; Sensorial Scenecraft.
