I taught neuropsychological research with an emphasis on special education for 25 years. I got started in this area when I told a friend that I did not have visual imagery. Her reaction was, "How do you think?"
I think by talking to myself but she thought via mental imagery. From there I developed a theory of the causes and remediation of reading disability.
To get started, try a simple experiment. Image an animal. Now rate it from 0-10 in terms of vividness and being lifelike. Did you image with your eyes open or closed? Now image with your eyes closed if they were open or open if they were closed. Now rate the image. Did it change?
I have tried this demonstration many times and about 50% of the people image with their eyes open and a majority of them, find the image decreases in vividness when they close them. But how often do we hear the instructions: Close your eyes and imagine.....
Try this in your classroom and let's hear what you find.
A closing question: When a song runs through your head, who is doing the singing?
Imagery and learning style
I assume we are to infer that those who don't have strong visual imagery have a decrease in vividness when they close their eyes. For myself, I feel that the difference isn't too great between the two, maybe slightly better when I close my eyes, like 4.5 versus 6. While I have a strong visual memory, I'm not an artist. Is the imagery at all linked to memory or artistic talent? The connection makes sense to me, but could be totally off base. Or is it an indication of learning style perhaps?
What does the singing experiment demonstrate? Auditory imagery, auditory memory or learning style and musical ability.
We ask kids to close their eyes a lot to imagine their "small moment" writing, but unless it's one on one, they tend to do whatever works for them most of the time. I suppose it would be easy to ask them to close their eyes "if that helps you make a clearer picture in your head" and it gives us an excuse to keep our eyes open and deter any undesired behavior.
Imagey styles
I do not mean to imply that those with less vivid imagery do better with their eyes closed. I have found no clear cut relationship between the vividness of imagery and a preference for open or closed eyes. My main point is that everyone's conscious experience is unique even in the most simple things like visual imagery. I don't want teachers or parents to assume that a student will image better with their eyes closed.
Auditory Imagery
When a song runs through your head, who is doing the singing?
There is about a 50/50 split between those who hear the artist and those who do the singing themselves. Hearing the artist is passive while singing yourself is active. It is much easier to stop the running song if it is you doing the singing.
I would like to explore whether those who hear the singer are more likely to be a person who learns by hearing and those who do the singing are more likely to be a person who learns by speaking.