ABSTRACT
The idea of mental images seems so natural to us that it is hard to believe that the whole concept of mental imagery has proved so highly controversial. To begin our account, we must distinguish between two forms of imagery, eidetic and internal. At a subjective level we can define eidetic imagery as the experience of images as if they were actual percepts, i.e. they appear in front of us and when we use them it is as if we are actually ‘seeing’ them. In adults, eidetic imagery is exceptionally rare but it is thought to be more widespread in children. According to Haber and Haber (1964) eidetic imagery is thought to be present in around eight per cent of children but only 0.1 per cent of adults. In a famous study of eidetic imagery, Allport (1924) briefly presented English children with the German word Gartenwirthschaft (meaning ‘market garden’). After only a brief exposure Allport found that the children could accurately repeat the sequence of letters backwards! In contrast, internal images are what we all experience; thus if asked to imagine something in our mind’s eye we are perfectly capable of doing so.
