Five tests will help you understand the full scope of your imagination

Call to your mind’s eye mid-winter, or a red balloon. What comes up? Vivid images of bare trees and rain zipping sideways, a bobbing balloon on a long string – or the look of the words, the ideas they denote, the feelings you link to them? The type and vividness of imagination we have vary greatly (see “The extremes of imagination reveal how our brains perceive reality”). As it exists in several forms, no single test can measure it – but here is a handful of ways to gauge the resources of your own imagination.

Test 1

The strength of reproductive imagination – our ability to visualise the appearance of things in their absence, hear their sound or recreate their tactile feel – has typically been assessed using vividness surveys.

Here are four scenarios adapted from the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire.

Visualise a rising sun. Carefully consider the picture that comes before your mind’s eye:

• When the sun rises above the horizon into a hazy sky
• When the sky clears and surrounds the sun with blueness
• When clouds appear and a storm blows up with flashes of lightning
• When a rainbow appears

Then rate each of the four images you formed, if any, on the following scale:  

• Perfectly clear and as vivid as real life = 5
• Clear and reasonably vivid = 4
• Moderately clear and lively = 3
• Vague and dim = 2
• No image at all, you only “know” that you are thinking of the object = 1

A score of 4/20 would…