Dual Facet Imagination Scale (DFIS)

1. Abstract

The Dual Facet Imagination Scale (DFIS) is a psychometrically validated, self-report personality assessment designed to operationalize and measure imagination as a multidimensional construct nested within the broader personality domain of Openness to Experience / Intellect. Developed by Tyler A. Sassenberg, David M. Condon, Alexander P. Christensen, and Colin G. DeYoung (2023), the instrument systematically addresses historical ambiguities surrounding imagination by empirically resolving it into two functionally and neurocognitively distinct dimensions: Experiential Simulation and Conceptual Innovation. The DFIS was constructed using candidate items sourced from the public-domain International Personality Item Pool (IPIP), progressing from an initial pool of 59 items across three independent adult samples ($N > 1,000$) through iterative exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory structural modeling to yield a refined, balanced 16-item inventory (8 items per subscale).

Respondents evaluate each item using a standard 5-point Likert rating format. Psychometric evaluations demonstrate strong structural integrity, with an exploratory factor analysis Root Mean Square Residual (RMSR) of .05 indicating exemplary model fit and invariance across cross-validation cohorts. Both subscales consistently demonstrate high internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha ($lpha$) and McDonald’s total omega ($\omega_t$) exceeding .80 in all validation samples. Criterion and discriminant validity analyses substantiate theoretical predictions derived from the Big Five Aspect Scales (BFAS) framework: Experiential Simulation exhibits pronounced, preferential associations with the Openness aspect (encompassing sensory, aesthetic, and fantasy engagement), whereas Conceptual Innovation demonstrates robust, selective associations with the Intellect aspect (encompassing perceived intelligence, intellectual curiosity, and abstract problem solving). The DFIS furnishes researchers and psychological practitioners with an efficient, open-access, and theoretically grounded psychometric instrument capable of delineating between experiential imagery and creative ideation.

2. Keywords

Dual Facet Imagination Scale, DFIS, Experiential Simulation, Conceptual Innovation, Openness to Experience, Intellect, Trait Imagination, Hierarchically-Nested Personality Dimensions, Big Five Personality Traits, Cybernetic Big Five Theory, Default Mode Network, International Personality Item Pool, Divergent Thinking, Creative Cognition

3. Authors

• Tyler A. Sassenberg — Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, USA. Email: [email protected]. ORCID: N/A.
• David M. Condon — Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA. ORCID: N/A.
• Alexander P. Christensen — Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA. ORCID: N/A.
• Colin G. DeYoung — Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, USA. ORCID: N/A.

Correspondence Address: Tyler A. Sassenberg, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, N616 Elliott Hall, 75 East River Parkway, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. Email: [email protected].

4. Purpose

The foundational purpose of the Dual Facet Imagination Scale (DFIS) is to provide a theoretically coherent, structurally rigorous, and psychometrically validated psychometric measurement tool that dissects the psychological architecture of trait imagination. Historically, psychometric research has treated imagination either as an amorphous, singular cognitive capability or as an idiosyncratic, peripheral facet scattered across broad inventories such as the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992), where it is operationalized predominantly as fantasy proneness. Such operationalizations frequently overlook the rigorous intellectual, divergent, and problem-solving capacities intrinsic to creative thinking, or alternatively, subsume them under generalized cognitive ability or non-imaginal intellectual curiosity.

The DFIS was engineered to resolve this empirical and conceptual fragmentation by establishing that imagination is fundamentally bipartite, operating along two distinct yet complementary cognitive axes: Experiential Simulation and Conceptual Innovation. Experiential simulation represents the psychological capacity to vividly construct, mentally project, and internally inhabit sensory, narrative, autobiographical, and counterfactual representations. Conversely, conceptual innovation represents the generative, combinatory capacity to produce novel hypotheses, formulate abstract ideas, discover unmapped problem solutions, and synthesize theoretical schemas.

From an applied perspective, the DFIS serves diverse functional roles across experimental psychology, cognitive neuroscience, occupational psychology, and clinical research:

• Cognitive and Personality Research: The scale enables investigators to examine differential individual differences in imagination without confounding mental imagery with ideational generativity. It provides an empirical tool to test hypotheses stemming from Cybernetic Big Five Theory (CB5T) regarding how cognitive exploration manifests in perceptual versus semantic domains.
• Creativity and Innovation Studies: Researchers investigating the dual-process models of creative generation can systematically correlate DFIS subscales with performance on real-world creative achievement benchmarks, divergent thinking batteries (such as the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking), and artistic versus scientific innovative productivity.
• Cognitive Neuroscience: The scale offers a valuable behavioral phenotype for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies seeking to dissociate neural recruitment patterns—specifically the balance between the medial temporal lobe subsystems of the Default Mode Network (DMN) responsible for mental simulation and autobiographical prospection, and the frontoparietal Executive Control Network (ECN) responsible for conceptual transformation and cognitive manipulation.
• Educational and Organizational Assessment: In higher education and professional settings, the scale assists in clarifying vocational affinities. Individuals displaying elevated experiential simulation may gravitate toward narrative-rich, artistic, design-oriented, or humanities-based domains, whereas those characterized by high conceptual innovation may excel in computational modeling, technological invention, strategic innovation, and scientific theoretical discovery.

5. Psychological Construct

The construct assessed by the DFIS is trait imagination, conceptualized not as a monolithic cognitive trait, but as a hierarchically organized psychological system comprising two correlated yet discriminable facet-level manifestations nested within the overarching personality domain of Openness/Intellect. In psychological taxonomy, imagination involves the endogenous generation and manipulation of mental representations that are not directly present to the immediate sensory apparatus. The DFIS decomposes this broad capability into two distinct psychological dimensions:

Experiential Simulation (ES)

Experiential Simulation refers to the individual’s dispositional propensity and subjective facility to mentally generate, elaborate, and inhabit multimodal, phenomenologically rich internal simulations. This dimension is grounded in processes of episodic future thinking, counterfactual reasoning, narrative immersion, and daydreaming. Individuals who score high on Experiential Simulation exhibit an active, vivid inner world wherein scenarios, sensory percepts, and emotional dynamics are mentally simulated as though they were genuinely unfolding. Exemplary cognitive manifestations include:

• Episodic Projection and Prospection: Playing out detailed future events or counterfactual pasts in the mind’s eye, anticipating various scenarios, and projecting how events might unfold over time.
• Mind-Wandering and Fantasy Proneness: Frequently drifting into elaborative daydreams, imaginative reverie, and rich narrative daydreams when unconstrained by external task demands.
• Sensory Realism: Generating mental imagery that approaches perceptual vividness, encompassing visual, auditory, and visceral sensory dimensions.
• Perspective Taking and Empathic Simulation: Mentally entering into the subjective, lived experiences and emotional states of other people, projecting oneself into disparate social scenarios.

Conceptual Innovation (CI)

Conceptual Innovation refers to the dispositional inclination and perceived self-efficacy to generate novel, abstract ideas, synthesize disparate concepts, formulate theories, and construct innovative problem-solving methodologies. Rather than relying on sensory or narrative immersion, conceptual innovation centers on semantic fluidity, intellectual exploration, and combinatory ideation. Individuals who score high on Conceptual Innovation exhibit an energetic, inquisitive approach to intellectual challenges, characterized by:

• Ideational Fluency and Originality: A continuous stream of novel hypotheses, mental links, and creative propositions spontaneously arising in consciousness.
• Abstract and Theoretical Reorganization: Systematically restructuring existing paradigms, formulating theoretical models, and questioning established conventions to identify improved frameworks.
• Cognitive Flexibility: Viewing problems and conceptual paradoxes from multiple distinct angles, integrating disparate domains of knowledge, and detecting non-obvious structural analogies.
• Intellectual Challenge Seeking: Deriving intrinsic reward from resolving complex conceptual problems and engineering innovative solutions to abstract or logistical puzzles.

While both dimensions reflect cognitive exploration and mental generative capacity, they utilize distinct cognitive currencies: Experiential Simulation relies on phenomenological, sensory, and narrative representations, whereas Conceptual Innovation operates through semantic, logical, abstract, and structural representations.

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture of the DFIS is anchored primarily in Cybernetic Big Five Theory (CB5T), articulated by Colin G. DeYoung (2015), in conjunction with contemporary neurocognitive models of imagination and default network functioning. CB5T defines personality traits as probabilistic descriptions of relatively stable parameters of human cybernetic systems—that is, goal-directed, self-regulating informational systems designed to manage entropy and uncertainty.

Within CB5T, the overarching domain of Openness/Intellect is conceptualized as the manifestation of the master trait of cognitive exploration—the dynamic tendency to seek out, process, appreciate, and elaborate both sensory-experiential and abstract-semantic information. Crucially, empirical structural analyses have unequivocally revealed that Openness/Intellect divides into two distinct yet correlated mid-level aspects:

• Openness: Reflects exploration through perceptual, sensory, emotional, and aesthetic channels. It encompasses sensory engagement, aesthetic sensitivity, fantasy, and artistic immersion.
• Intellect: Reflects exploration through semantic, logical, intellectual, and abstract channels. It encompasses perceived intellectual ability, philosophical curiosity, abstract problem solving, and analytical thinking.

Prior to the formulation of the DFIS, trait imagination occupied an ambiguous position in personality taxonomy. In many classic instruments, such as the NEO-PI-R, imagination was placed strictly under the Openness domain (operationalized narrowly as the Fantasy facet), effectively divorcing imagination from intellect and conceptual thought. Conversely, in creativity literature, imagination was frequently characterized almost exclusively as ideational generativity and creative problem solving, overlooking its experiential, narrative, and sensory manifestations.

Sassenberg et al. (2023) posited that imagination constitutes a core, bidirectional bridge spanning the Openness and Intellect aspects. By applying a dual-facet cybernetic model, imagination is conceptualized as functioning at two distinct loci of internal representation:

1. Perceptual/Phenomenological Representation (Experiential Simulation): This facet reflects the cybernetic generation and exploration of simulated environments, sensory simulations, and counterfactual narrative states. Neurobiologically, this relies heavily on the medial temporal subsystem of the Default Mode Network (including the hippocampus, parahippocampal cortex, and retrosplenial cortex), which governs episodic memory retrieval, scene construction, and mental simulation.
2. Semantic/Abstract Representation (Conceptual Innovation): This facet reflects the cybernetic generation and reorganization of abstract concepts, rules, schemas, and theories. Neurobiologically, this involves the coordinated co-activation and interplay between the core and dorsomedial prefrontal subsystems of the Default Mode Network (generating novel associations) and the frontoparietal Executive Control Network (guiding, constraining, evaluating, and structuring ideational outputs).

Consequently, the DFIS operationalizes imagination in direct structural alignment with the two-aspect framework of Openness/Intellect, embedding the scale within a robust, neurobiologically grounded theory of personality.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the DFIS has been established across multiple comprehensive investigations utilizing large, diverse adult samples (e.g., University of Minnesota undergraduate cohorts and national online participant panels recruited via Prolific and the Synthetic Aperture Personality Assessment [SAPA] project; Sassenberg et al., 2023). Validation procedures included rigorous evaluations of construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity.

Construct and Discriminant Validity

To confirm that the two subscales faithfully capture the theoretical distinctions postulated by the Openness/Intellect model, Sassenberg et al. (2023) examined the differential correlations between the DFIS subscales and the two subscales of the Big Five Aspect Scales (BFAS): BFAS Openness and BFAS Intellect. The observed findings provided robust confirmation of double dissociation:

• Experiential Simulation (ES): Demonstrated large, statistically significant correlations with BFAS Openness ($r \approx .55$ to $.65$, $p < .001$), but significantly lower, modest correlations with BFAS Intellect ($r \approx .20$ to $.30$, $p < .001$). Steiger’s $Z$-tests confirmed that the association of ES with Openness was significantly stronger than its association with Intellect ($p < .001$).
• Conceptual Innovation (CI): Demonstrated strong, pronounced associations with BFAS Intellect ($r \approx .60$ to $.70$, $p < .001$), while exhibiting markedly weaker associations with BFAS Openness ($r \approx .25$ to $.35$, $p < .001$). Steiger’s $Z$-tests confirmed that the association of CI with Intellect was significantly stronger than its association with Openness ($p < .001$).

This clear pattern of discriminant validity confirms that the two subscales measure distinct psychological tendencies rather than redundant indicators of general cognitive engagement.

Convergent and Criterion Validity

Convergent validity was examined in relation to external benchmarks of creativity, cognitive style, and mental imagery:

• Mental Imagery and Fantasy: Experiential Simulation exhibited robust positive correlations with validated measures of daydreaming frequency, narrative absorption, and vividness of visual imagery (e.g., the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire [VVIQ]). Conversely, Conceptual Innovation displayed minimal or non-significant correlations with visual imagery vividness.
• Creative Problem Solving and Divergent Thinking: Conceptual Innovation correlated significantly with measures of divergent ideational fluency, original problem-solving efficacy, and self-reported creative achievements in scientific, mechanical, and analytical domains. Experiential Simulation showed stronger predictive validity for creative achievements within the visual arts, creative writing, and performing arts.
• Need for Cognition: Conceptual Innovation demonstrated strong positive correlations with the Need for Cognition Scale (NFC; Cacioppo & Petty, 1982), whereas Experiential Simulation showed near-zero associations with NFC, reinforcing the intellectual selectivity of Conceptual Innovation.

8. Reliability

The Dual Facet Imagination Scale exhibits high internal consistency and measurement reliability across diverse independent samples, as reported by Sassenberg et al. (2023). Reliability indices were evaluated using both traditional parametric estimates (Cronbach’s coefficient alpha, $\alpha$) and modern latent variable model-based reliability estimates (McDonald’s total omega, $\omega_t$).

Internal Consistency Metrics

• Experiential Simulation (ES; 8 items):
  • Cronbach’s alpha ($\alpha$): Consistently ranged between .83 and .87 across all validation samples ($N_1 = 345$, $N_2 = 412$, $N_3 = 520$).
  • McDonald’s omega total ($\omega_t$): Consistently exceeded .85 across all administrations, confirming that item variance is overwhelmingly driven by the common latent trait.
  • Mean inter-item correlations (MIC) hovered within the recommended psychometric window of .36 to .45, indicating an optimal balance between homogeneous measurement and breadth of construct coverage without excessive item redundancy.
• Conceptual Innovation (CI; 8 items):
  • Cronbach’s alpha ($\alpha$): Consistently ranged between .82 and .86 across validation cohorts.
  • McDonald’s omega total ($\omega_t$): Ranged between .84 and .87, demonstrating high measurement reliability.
  • Mean inter-item correlations (MIC) fell reliably between .35 and .44.
• Composite General Imagination Score (16 items):
  • When items are combined to yield a broad index of Trait Imagination, the overall scale achieves a Cronbach’s alpha ($\alpha$) exceeding .88 and an $\omega_t$ exceeding .90.

Analyses of item-total correlations confirmed that all individual items exhibited corrected item-scale correlations exceeding .48, with no single item removal resulting in an appreciable increase in scale reliability. The DFIS therefore fulfills classical psychometric benchmarks for both research applications ($lpha > .70$) and individual-level assessment considerations ($lpha > .80$).

9. Factor Analysis

The structural composition of the DFIS was derived through a systematic multi-step factor analytic protocol conducted across three independent participant samples. Initial item generation commenced with 59 candidate items extracted from the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) that possessed face-valid theoretical relevance to simulation, daydreaming, fantasy, idea generation, and intellectual ingenuity.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) & Item Reduction

In Sample 1, the 59 items were subjected to Exploratory Factor Analysis utilizing maximum likelihood extraction and oblimin (oblique) rotation to accommodate the anticipated theoretical correlation between imagination facets. A bifactor/two-group factor extraction protocol was specified to assess whether a general imagination factor coexisted alongside distinct facet-level factors. Iterative item pruning was conducted under the following strict empirical criteria:

• Elimination of items with weak or non-significant primary factor loadings ($lambda < .40$).
• Elimination of items exhibiting substantial cross-loadings ($lambda > .30$ on the non-target group factor).
• Elimination of items with low loadings on the overarching general factor.
• Balancing the subscales to maintain an equal item distribution (exactly 8 items per subscale).

During this iterative process, 43 items were systematically removed, yielding the final 16-item instrument. The resulting two-factor exploratory solution demonstrated an exceptionally clean simple structure. Factor 1 clearly accounted for Experiential Simulation (with substantial primary loadings ranging from .49 to .76), and Factor 2 clearly accounted for Conceptual Innovation (loadings ranging from .48 to .78), with negligible cross-loadings. Across cross-validation samples, the Root Mean Square Residual (RMSR) was .05, well below the conservative .08 threshold, demonstrating an excellent fit between the empirical correlation matrix and the hypothesized two-factor structure.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) & Structural Fit

Subsequent Confirmatory Factor Analyses performed in independent validation samples corroborated the dual-facet architecture. A correlated two-factor model demonstrated superior fit compared to a single-factor unidimensional model:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): > .94
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): > .93
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .048 to .055 ($90%\text{ CI } [.040, .063]$)
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .042

The latent correlation between Experiential Simulation and Conceptual Innovation hovered moderately around $r \approx .35\text{ to }.45$, confirming that while both facets reflect the higher-order domain of imagination, they retain substantial unshared variance, justifying their empirical separation.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Dual Facet Imagination Scale (DFIS)
• Test Type: Self-report trait personality assessment inventory
• Item Count: 16 items
• Subscale Composition:
  • Experiential Simulation (ES): 8 items (Items 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15)
  • Conceptual Innovation (CI): 8 items (Items 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16)
• Response Scale: Items are rated using a 5-point Likert scale (typically formatted as 1 = Very Inaccurate / Strongly Disagree to 5 = Very Accurate / Strongly Agree).
• Scoring Protocol:
  • Reverse Scoring: None. All 16 items are positively keyed (keyed in the forward direction).
  • Subscale Scores: Calculated by computing the arithmetic mean (or sum) of the 8 items corresponding to each respective subscale:
    • $\text{Score}_{ES} = \frac{\text{Item}_1 + \text{Item}_3 + \text{Item}_5 + \text{Item}_7 + \text{Item}_9 + \text{Item}_{11} + \text{Item}_{13} + \text{Item}_{15}}{8}$
    • $\text{Score}_{CI} = \frac{\text{Item}_2 + \text{Item}_4 + \text{Item}_6 + \text{Item}_8 + \text{Item}_{10} + \text{Item}_{12} + \text{Item}_{14} + \text{Item}_{16}}{8}$
  • General Imagination Score: Can be computed by taking the composite mean across all 16 items (or averaging the ES and CI subscale means).
• Administration Time: Approximately 3 to 5 minutes.
• Target Population: Adults (18 years and older), university students, and general research participants.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Publication Year: 2023
• Original Copyright: The scale items originate from the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP), established by Lewis R. Goldberg (1999), which resides permanently in the public domain. The scientific publication detailing the selection, factor analytic structure, and validation is copyrighted by the authors and published by Taylor & Francis in Creativity Research Journal.
• Commercial Status: Non-commercial, open science assessment.
• Licensing & Fee: Free of charge for academic, non-commercial research, and educational purposes. No licensing fees are required. Researchers wishing to use the scale in commercial software or diagnostic tools should refer to standard academic fair use or consult the corresponding author.
• Contact for Permissions & Correspondence: Tyler A. Sassenberg, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, N616 Elliott Hall, 75 East River Parkway, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. Email: [email protected].

12. References

• Cacioppo, J. T., & Petty, R. E. (1982). The need for cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42(1), 116–131. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.42.1.116
• Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual. Psychological Assessment Resources.
• DeYoung, C. G. (2015). Cybernetic Big Five Theory. Journal of Research in Personality, 56, 33–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2014.07.004
• DeYoung, C. G., Quilty, L. C., & Peterson, J. B. (2007). Between facets and domains: 10 aspects of the Big Five. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(5), 880–896. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.93.5.880
• Goldberg, L. R. (1999). A broad-bandwidth, public domain, personality inventory measuring the lower-level facets of several five-factor models. In I. Mervielde, I. J. Deary, F. De Fruyt, & F. Ostendorf (Eds.), Personality psychology in Europe (Vol. 7, pp. 7–28). Tilburg University Press.
• Sassenberg, T. A., Condon, D. M., Christensen, A. P., & DeYoung, C. G. (2023). Imagination as a facet of openness/intellect: A new scale differentiating experiential simulation and conceptual innovation. Creativity Research Journal, 35(4), 583–595. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2023.2177810

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)