The story begins with Aristotle
Aphantasia was first given a name in 2015, but knowledge of our invisible differences can be found dating back to 340 BC. Aristotle stands at the beginning of this history when aphantasia was not an established topic of discussion yet.
Aristotle coins the term phantasia in De Amina (On the Soul), Part III to describe a distinct capacity between perception and thought — a sort of ‘sixth sense.’
Phantasia is commonly translated to imagination, and is often explained in the context of visualizing and dreaming.
Although there is some disagreement among scholars as to the literal translation, most would agree that phantasia is not ‘unrelated to imagination‘ though it is used similarly by Aristotle to explain other cognitive processes like memory, thought, reasoning, desire, action and more.
In a brief discussion in De Anima III 3, Aristotle describes imagination as “that in virtue of which an image occurs in us”— in thoughts, dreams, and memories. His account of phantasia includes mental imagery, dreams, and even hallucinations.
Aristotle makes a point to distinguish this capacity for “creating mental representations”‘ from perception. For Aristotle, phantasia “need never to have been actually perceived by the senses, nor ever really exist.“
Put simply, our imagination can be false often in fantastic ways. Perhaps that’s why it’s often closely associated with fantasy.
During this period, however, it was generally believed that thoughts required images. That is, “whenever one contemplates, one necessarily at the same time contemplates in images” (De Anima III 8).
Aphantasia, or blind imagination, proves Aristotle may have been wrong about that.
Fast forward to 2009, Dr. Adam Zeman a neurologist from Exeter University receives a patient who can no longer imagine — known affectionately among the aphantasia community as patient MX.
MX goes blind in his mind’s eye after undergoing surgery. News of patient MX’s experience attracted media attention, this led to many new discoverers who could relate to similar experiences, only they had been blind in their mind’s eye since birth.
Zeman coins the term “a-phantasia” to describe the inability to visualize in 2015.
Timeline of Extreme Imagination
The science behind imagery extremes, aphantasia and hyperphantasia, is ever-evolving. The following are just some of the historic discoveries, events and happenings that have and are changing our understanding of these unique individual differences.
340BC
Phantasia is the word Aristotle used to describe imagination. Aristotle identifies imagination as a distinct capacity to produce images or ‘pictorial representations’, when there is no perception, as in dreams.
1880
British psychologist Francis Galton the first to report cases of individual variability in visual imagery. A study involving 100 people asks participants to imagine their breakfast table. Of the 100 studied, 12 reported very dim images or no mental imagery at all.
1963
William Grey Walter describes two ways of thinking, visualizers vs. conceptualizers in the 1963 text “The Living Brain.” In his studies, Walter found that one in six people are conceptualizers. More early evidence of the invisible differences in our inner experience.
1973
British psychologist David Marks creates the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) to measure individual differences in vividness of visual imagery. Since publication, VVIQ has been referenced in over 1200 studies, and has been given considerable attention in the domains of psychology, philosophy, and more recently, cognitive neuroscience.
2003
Oliver Sacks publishes an article ‘The Mind’s Eye‘ in The New Yorker. Sacks points out the huge variations in visual imagery in the sighted. Mentions his mother’s accurate visual imagination. Describes meeting a man at a medical conference who had “no visual imagery whatsoever.”
2009
A 65-year old man and former surveyor, known as ‘patient MX’, underwent heart surgery and reported losing his ability to imagine. Professor Adam Zeman of the University of Exeter publishes a study and coins the term “blind imagination”.
Bill Faw of Brewton-Parker College in Georgia reported that about 3-5% of the 2,500 people he queried reported having no visual imagination. This figure served as the first population estimate of people living with blind imagination.
2010
Discover magazine publishes a story about patient MX, only to discover that MX is not alone. Several respondents to this publication report no visual imagery, but unlike patient MX, they have been this way since birth.
2015
Professor Adam Zeman conducts a study with 21 control subjects that reveals outliers on both ends of visual imagery extremes. The inability to voluntarily visualize is given the name congenital aphantasia, meaning from birth. Zeman later names the opposite phenomenon hyperphantasia.
2018
Team of scientists led by Dr. Adam Zeman from the University of Exeter and professor Joel Pearson from University of New South Whales embark on brain imaging studies of people with aphantasia to determine the neural basis for why some people cannot create visual images of people, places and things in their mind’s eye.
Dr. Joel Pearson and researchers at University of New South Whales conduct a study to measure sensory imagery in subjectively self-diagnosed aphantasics using the binocular rivalry paradigm, a more objective measure. The study finds aphantasia is a condition involving a lack of sensory imagery and not a lack of metacognition.
2019
Founder of the Aphantasia Network, Tom Ebeyer, who is among the first reported cases of congenital aphantasia mentioned in Zeman’s original paper, establishes the Aphantasia Network. Tom’s “vision” is to realize the full potential of the ~3% worldwide with blind imagination.
The first international conference for people living with extreme imagination takes place at the University of Exeter, alongside an exhibition of work by aphantasic and hyperphantasic artists at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum.
In a surprising survey of his former employees (n= 540), co-founder of Pixar and former president of Walt Disney Animation Studios, Ed Catmull, discovers that some of the world’s best animators are aphantasic — including the animator of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Glen Keane.
2020
A study led by the University of Exeter finds that aphantasia has certain benefits when it comes to working in technical sectors. People with low or no ability to visualize mental images are more likely to work in scientific and mathematical industries than creative sectors. The phenomenon is the opposite of hyperphantasia which has been shown to be more common in creative professions.
A study led by University of New South Whales found that the strength of a person’s mental imagery is linked to the excitability of neurons in different brain regions. These shocking insights are the first clue as to what might cause aphantasia and hyperphantasia.
According to a study from University of New South Whales, aphantasic individuals report decreased imagery in other sensory domains, although not all report a complete lack of multi-sensory imagery; highlighting the large individual variability that characterizes our internal mental representations and the different sub-types of aphantasia.
2021
Aphantasia Network hosts the second Extreme Imagination conference and exhibition, in partnership with Dr. Adam Zeman and the Mind’s Eye team. The virtual event brought together over 400 people across 16 different countries.
The first physiological indicator of aphantasia is discovered. Researchers at University of New South Whales investigate whether people with aphantasia have different pupillary responses to people without the condition. They found that the pupils of those with aphantasia do not respond to visual imagery in the same way as those without. The researchers concluded that changes in pupil size could be used to measure the strength of visual imagination.
2022
Aphantasia Network beta launches a new sensory imagination assessment for detecting multi-sensory aphantasia. The Imagination Spectrum discovery platform provides assessments, real-time analysis and personalized results on the unique variations in our individual inner experiences that can be used to compare with others, across teams, and more.
A study conducted by psychologist, Merlin Monzel and research team from the University of Bonn finds no pathological significance of aphantasia based on an evaluation of criteria for mental disorders. In sum, although aphantasia meets the criterion of statistical rarity, the impact on activities of daily living and personal distress is too weak to justify a classification as a mental disorder.
