Pilot Study 1 shows that in L1 story conditions, there is no difference in NTQ ratings between including or not including mental imagery instructions. This can be supported by the idea that in L1 conditions the mental imagery levels are already high, thus including a mental imagery instruction is not enough to increase levels of NTQ. On the other hand, Pilot Study 2 shows there is a possibility that mental imagery direction increases the rating of NTQ in L2 settings as there is a significantly higher score on the posttest condition with the imagery instructions compared to the conditions without instructions. In addition, the mean posttest scores in the Pilot Study 2 look closer in value to the mean scores in Pilot Study 1. This may indicate that for L2 stories, mental imagery instructions elevate NTQ ratings closer to L1 NTQ ratings.
We interpreted these outcomes to indicate that the instructions that we constructed would encourage L2 participants to engage in mental imagery as intended.
3. MAIN EXPERIMENT