The Vividness of Food Imagery Questionnaire (VFIQ): Development and Validation of a Multisensory Measure of Food Imagery
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Mental imagery of food is inherently multisensory, yet no existing questionnaire provides a food-specific, multisensory assessment of everyday food imagery. Current instruments are domain-general, restricted to one sensory modality, or designed for specific products such as wine. Across two studies with French-speaking adults, we developed and validated the Vividness of Food Imagery Questionnaire (VFIQ), a brief self-report measure of visual, olfactory, gustatory, and somatosensory imagery across four everyday food scenarios. In Study 1, items were generated, evaluated by scientific experts for content validity (n = 6), and tested for clarity (n = 68). In Study 2 (n = 412; matched exploratory and confirmatory subsamples of 206), we examined the questionnaire's latent structure, reliability, and validity. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses indicated that responses were best represented by a general food-imagery factor with scenario-related variance, supporting a single overall score. The VFIQ showed excellent internal consistency (α = .943; ordinal α = .958; ωt = .980) and moderate one-month test–retest reliability (r = .674; ICC = .67, n = 91). It correlated strongly with general multisensory imagery (r = .631) and more weakly with body awareness (r = .233), supporting convergent and discriminant validity. Scores were positively associated with cooking competence (r = .291), negatively associated with food neophobia (r = −.211), and explained variance in both beyond general imagery ability. The VFIQ provides a reliable, valid, and practical measure of multisensory food imagery for research in sensory science, cognition, and nutrition.
Source: HAL
Language: English
Subfield: Food Science
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7208800452