Imaginal scanning refers to a task in which a participant is asked to form a mental image and to scan over it from one point to another.

In psychology, imaginal scanning is a task that involves forming a mental image and then intentionally moving one's attention over that image in a systematic way. This process is often used as a research tool to study various aspects of cognition and perception, such as how people process and remember visual information, how they attend to different features of an image, and how they make decisions based on visual stimuli.

Imaginal scanning tasks are often used in conjunction with other methods, such as eye tracking or brain imaging, to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how the brain processes visual information. Researchers may ask participants to perform imaginal scanning tasks while they are looking at real images, or they may ask them to form mental images based on verbal descriptions or other stimuli.

Imaginal scanning tasks can be used to study a variety of phenomena, including memory, attention, decision-making, and other cognitive processes. They can also be used to investigate individual differences in these processes, such as differences between people with different levels of expertise or experience in a particular domain.