Looking Within: Visual Imagery Perspective Shifts Reliance on Internal States Versus Proxies

Abstract Background Using an observer’s third-person visual perspective (rather than one’s own first-person perspective) prompts people to understand imagined events more in relation to their conceptual beliefs, rather than their experiential reactions. Similar to the thinking style evoked by third-person imagery, people high in obsessive-compulsive (OC) tendencies exhibit attenuated access to their directly-experienced internal states, prompting reliance on proxies. Given these similarities, the current work tests the connection between imagery perspective, OC tendencies, and reliance on proxies for internal states. Methods Study 1 measured participants’ ( N = 292) OC tendencies and tendency to seek proxies for internal states. Participants also visualized simple actions and reported whether their mental imagery was more from the first-person or third-person perspective. Study 2 manipulated visual perspective as participants ( N = 295) imagined hypothetical scenarios. Participants reported the extent to which they would act in accordance with their internal state in each scenario versus the extent to which they would seek out proxies to verify the internal state. Results More third-person imagery use was correlated with OC tendencies and the tendency to seek proxies for internal states in Study 1. Experimentally manipulating first-person (vs. third-person) imagery increased reliance on internal states and decreased reliance on proxies in Study 2, regardless of OC tendencies. Conclusions We found that first-person (vs. third-person) imagery causes more reliance on internal states and less reliance on proxies for those states. This suggests a direction for developing and testing theoretically-driven interventions using first-person imagery to increase reliance on internal states among people with OC tendencies.