Imagery in Front of One's Forehead

I posted briefly on this in 2006, but I continue to be struck by the following fact: When I interview people about their imagery they often report their images as seeming to be located in front of their foreheads. Often when people say this, they give me a slightly embarrassed look, as though this report surprises them too. Only a minority of subjects report imagery in front of their forehead, but it's a pretty healthy minority (rough estimate: 25%).

I don't think that I am forcing this report on subjects: At first, such reports surprised me, too. Antecedently, I would have thought the most likely possibilities to be: (1.) the image occurs nowhere in egocentric space, not seeming to be subjectively located at all; (2.) the image is subjectively experienced as inside the head; (3.) the image is subjectively experienced as before the eyes. Subjects do sometimes report (1)-(3), though not appreciably more often than in front of the forehead.

As far as I know, there is no serious study of the subjectively experienced location of imagery, including its conditions and variations. Some questions that arise:

(1.) Do people's differences in report about the subjective location of their imagery reflect real differences between people in how they experience imagery, or is the subjective location of imagery, or lack of subjective location, more or less the same for everyone but for some reason difficult to report accurately?

(2.) Can one control the subjective location of imagery? Suppose I am imagining Napoleon vanquished at Waterloo, and it seems to me that that imagery is transpiring inside my head. Can I take that very same imagery and make it transpire, instead, in front of my forehead? (Obviously, I am not talking about where the brain processes occur, but where it seems to me, subjectively, that the imagery is happening, if it seems to me that it is happening somewhere.) Can I make the image transpire down by my right toe? Can I move it over into the next room? Across town? Is there some limit to this?

(3.) Is there a difference between visually imagining an object as being some place relative to you and having one's image of that object transpiring in a particular subjective location? Getting clear on this distinction (if it is a valid distinction) seems essential to answering (2) accurately. So, for example, can I have an image in my head, or an image unlocated in subjective space, of someone sitting in the empty chair that I am (really) looking at across the room? If this distinction is hard to conceptualize, consider pictures as an analogy: I can have a picture *in my hand* of myself sitting *in that chair over there*. The picture is located in my hand; its representational content is that I am sitting in that chair over there. Is the same kind of split possible for imagery? I can imagine a mini-Napoleon engaged in a battle near my right toe, while I gaze down at my foot, but that is rather different -- isn't it? -- than having an ordinary image of Napoleon's defeat that is experientially located as transpiring by my right toe. If my imagery is experienced as inside of my head, it's not like I am imagining that little mini-Napoleon having climbed into my head, I think.

(4.) Is there interference between visual perception of outward objects from some location and the subjective location of one's imagery? So, for example, if your image is subjectively experienced as in the upper right quadrant of your visual field, are you less likely to detect an object that subtly appears in that location? (I have a vague feeling that someone has tested this, though maybe not with the distinction I articulate at (3) clearly in mind. Reminders/references appreciated. [I don't just mean Perky 1910, though that seems relevant.])

(5.) Why would in front of the forehead be a more common location in subjective space than, say, down by the cheeks? Does this reflect some cultural supposition about where images must be? (But if so, where in the culture?) Does it reflect some real phenomenon, perhaps some cognitive efficiency gained, by representing one's imagery experiences as positioned there?