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The Cognitive Construction of Moral Scenes: Associations of Visuospatial Ability and Impulsivity with Perspective and Vividness in Mental Simulation
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DOI：10.1016/j.cortex.2026.06.007.png)
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Abstract
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Moral dilemma evaluation depends on mental scene construction: people must build an internal event model specifying agents, spatial relations, and causal consequences. This process plausibly depends on visuospatial resources and self-regulatory control when imagined harm is affectively charged. This study tested whether individual differences in spatial visualization ability and impulsivity are associated with the representational format of moral simulation, specifically imagery vividness and simulated visual perspective, beyond endorsement rates. In an online sample (N = 156), participants were randomly assigned to either the Switch or Footbridge trolley dilemma and provided two judgments: moral acceptability and willingness to act. After each judgment, they reported imagery vividness, including a no-visual-imagery option, and simulated perspective (first-person vs. third-person). Spatial visualization ability was assessed with the Spatial Visualization subtest of the INT, and impulsivity facets with the I-8. All inferential estimates were derived from bootstrap procedures (5,000 resamples), including mediation models testing whether vividness accounted for associations between individual differences and simulated perspective. In the high-conflict Footbridge dilemma, higher spatial visualization scores were associated with reduced imagery vividness and, in mediation models, with a greater likelihood of third-person simulation indirectly via lower vividness across both judgment contexts. By contrast, spatial visualization scores showed little association with endorsement rates. Impulsivity effects were selective: higher premeditation was associated with a lower likelihood of third-person simulation in Footbridge, especially for willingness-to-act judgments. These findings suggest that under heightened moral conflict, individual differences are more closely related to how moral scenes are represented than to binary moral choices.
Keywords:
mental scene construction
moral decision-making
trolley problem
spatial visualization
visuospatial ability
mental imagery vividness
simulated visual perspective
self-distancing
impulsivity (premeditation)
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