Why does vivid imagery hurt colour memory?

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Abstract
Earlier findings have shown that subjects with vivid visual imagery (by self-report) perform less accurately on tasks of colour memory. In the current experiment, we seek both to replicate these surprising results and to examine the underlying mechanism by asking about the error pattern. Subjects were run through multiple iterations of a procedure requiring short-term memory for colour. Subjects reporting vivid visual imagery performed less well than other subjects. The data indicate that the high vividness imagers are not accepting a wider range of choices. Instead, high and low vividness imagers show comparable self-consistency, but the high vividness imagers are choosing responses more distant from the correct choice.

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