Recent Practice And Theory

In this volume are papers selected from the 1982 Annual Confer­ ence of the American Association for the Study of Mental Imagery, as well as several others that were later invited. This conference, a yearly one, was held at the University of Southern California. Participants and invited speakers come from around the country and present current material on the status of theory, research and practice involving imagery. These conferences began in 1979 and typically have attracted two hundred or more persons. In the opening paper by Paul Bakan we have a discussion of imagery from an historical perspective. He traces the various attitudes toward imagery starting with biblical times and argues that the behaviorist revolution and its antagonism towards imagery were likely reflective of more than a negative ·attitude toward imagery as a consequence of its being associated with consciousness and mental­ istic concepts. We have apparently been ambivalent towards imagery over the millenia. He closes with some suggestions of how we may more happily resolve this situation.