While most people have had the experience of seeing a representation in the mind’s eye, it is an open question whether we have control over the vividness of these representations. The present study explored this issue by using an imagery-perception interface whereby color imagery was used to prime congruent color targets in visual search. In Experiments 1a and 1b, participants were required to report the vividness of an imagined representation after generating it, and in Experiment 2, participants were directed to create an imagined representation with particular vividness prior to generating it. The analyses revealed that the magnitude of the imagery congruency effect increased with both reported and directed vividness. The findings here strongly support the notion that participants have metacognitive awareness of the mind’s eye and willful control over the vividness of its representations.

尽管大多数人都有在大脑中看到表示形式的经验，但我们是否能控制这些表示形式的生动性是一个悬而未决的问题。本研究通过使用图像感知界面来探索此问题，其中彩色图像用于在视觉搜索中引发全等的颜色目标。在实验1a和1b中，要求参与者在生成想象的表示之后要报告其生动性，而在实验2中，要求参与者在生成它之前先创建具有特定生动性的想象的表示。分析表明，图像的一致性效果的幅度随报告的生动性和定向的生动性而增加。