Perspective
Author: Florian Morin
Date: June 14, 2026
Type: Perspective
Version: v1.0
v1.0 - Initial release.
Recent work has documented a marked decline in visual imagery vividness from adolescence to adulthood, suggesting that important aspects of internally generated experience undergo substantial developmental change. Independently, many adults report that certain forms of intense childhood-like joy become increasingly difficult to access after adolescence. Despite their apparent developmental parallels, these phenomena are typically studied separately.
This perspective argues that both may reflect consequences of a broader and largely neglected developmental transition affecting openness to internally generated experience. Within the proposed regime theory, vivid imagery and intensive joy are viewed as closely related manifestations of a permissive cognitive state characterized by reduced evaluative monitoring and increased experiential openness. The framework further suggests that developmental increases in monitoring, evaluation, anticipation, and optimization progressively restrict access to this state.
If correct, the regime, here called ease, may represent an important but largely unrecognized object of investigation for affective neuroscience and developmental psychology. The framework generates testable predictions regarding developmental trajectories, individual differences, and interventions capable of restoring access to both phenomena in adulthood.
Vivid imagery and intensive childhood-like joy may not be independent developmental phenomena. Both may depend on access to a permissive cognitive regime characterized by reduced evaluative monitoring, reduced optimization, and increased openness to internally generated experience.
evaluative monitoring, vivid imagery, intensive joy, ease regime, developmental psychology, positive affect, optimization.
morin, florian (2026). Evaluative Monitoring as a Common Link Between Vivid Imagery and Intensive Joy. figshare. Preprint. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.32668995
@article{morin2026evaluativemonitoringimageryjoy,
title = {Evaluative Monitoring as a Common Link Between Vivid Imagery and Intensive Joy},
subtitle = {Perspective},
author = {Morin, Florian},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-06-14},
url = {https://florianmorin.com/papers/evaluative-monitoring-vivid-imagery-intensive-joy}
doi = {https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.32668995}
}