The Forces of the Imagination: Exploring dimensions of mental imagery using the ReaderBank Imagination Quiz (RBIQ)

Reading stories can evoke vivid experiences of people, places, and scenes, but despite growinginterest in the diversity of mental imagery, few studies have systematically explored the readingimagination. ReaderBank – a collaboration between Durham University and EdinburghInternational Book Festival – is an attempt to chart the dynamics of the reading imagination vialiterary festivals and similar settings. Here we present a new scale, the ReaderBank ImaginationQuiz, which was developed across two festivals and a replication sample in 2023-24 (total N =867). Factor analysis was used to identify a 16-item scale with four subscales; Space andVision, Voice and Language, People Models, and Perspective. The factors showed strong andspecific relations with measures of mental imagery, immersion, daydreaming, and intrusivecognitions. Such findings highlight not only the complexity of the reading mind but also radicaldiversity of imagination skills, with implications for the understanding and treatment of mentalill health.