Scientists are not deficient in mental imagery: Galton revised
Abstract
In 1880, Galton carried out an investigation of imagery in a sample of distinguished
men and a sample of nonscientists (adolescent male students). He concluded that
scientists were either totally lacking in visual imagery or had “feeble” powers of mental
imagery. This finding has been widely accepted in the secondary literature in psychology.
A replication of Galton’s study with modern scientists and modern university
undergraduates found no scientists totally lacking in visual imagery and very few with
feeble visual imagery. Examination of Galton’s published data shows that his own
published data do not support his claims about deficient visual imagery in scientists.
The modern data for scientists and nonscientists and the 1880 data for scientists and
nonscientists are in agreement in showing that all groups report substantial imagery on
recollective memory tasks such as Galton’s breakfast questionnaire. We conclude that
Galton’s conclusions were an example of theory-laden interpretation of data based on
the initial responses from several very salient scientists who reported little or no visual
imagery on Galton’s imagery questionnaire.