AphantasiaResearch
Explore a comprehensive collection of academic papers, research studies, and scientific publications about aphantasia, imagery, and cognitive neuroscience.
A decade of aphantasia research – and still going!
Aphantasia is the inability to visualize images in one's mind. Research suggests it may not be a single condition but has various subtypes. People with aphantasia often navigate life well, possibly relying on unconscious imagery. Understanding aphantasia can provide insights into how mental imagery functions and its role in our thoughts and memories.
Zeman, A. (2025). A decade of aphantasia research – and still going!. Neuropsychologia, 219, 109278. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109278
Unsupervised clustering reveals spatial and verbal cognitive profiles in aphantasia and typical imagery
Individuals with aphantasia, who cannot visualize images, show diverse cognitive profiles. While they generally perform similarly to those with typical imagery, some rely more on verbal processing, while others excel in spatial tasks. This study highlights the complexity of mental representation, suggesting a spectrum of cognitive styles beyond just visual imagery.
Delem, M., Turkben, S., Cavalli, E., Cousineau, D., & Plancher, G. (2025). Unsupervised clustering reveals spatial and verbal cognitive profiles in aphantasia and typical imagery. Neuropsychologia, 219, 109279. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109279
Mapping the imageless mind: Towards a taxonomy of aphantasia
This article proposes that aphantasia is not a single condition but rather encompasses at least three distinct forms, each with different causes and mechanisms.
Bartolomeo, P. (2025). Mapping the imageless mind: towards a taxonomy of aphantasia. Neuropsychologia, 219, 109276. doi:/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109276
Aphantasia avant le nom: historical perspectives on the absence or loss of visual imagery
Background: Cases of acquired loss or diminution of visual mental imagery and congenital absence of the experience of visual imagery were described by Zeman and his colleagues in 2010 and 2015 respectively, the latter report inaugurating a new terminology for such symptoms or experiences: "aphantasia". Methods: Narrative review of individuals and patients with experiences suggestive of congenital absence or acquired loss of visual imagery reported in the scientific literature prior to the first use of "aphantasia". Results: Accepting the potential pitfalls of retrospective diagnosis or identification, examples deemed concordant with "aphantasia", both acquired and congenital, may be found in the historical literature, dating back to the penultimate decade of the nineteenth century. Conclusion: Although the word "aphantasia" was new as of 2015, the defining features have been described for more than 100 years. The data reviewed here provide an epistemic basis to support either retrospective diagnosis or identification of aphantasia.
Larner, A. J. (2025). Aphantasia avant le nom: historical perspectives on the absence or loss of visual imagery. Neuropsychologia, 218, 109254. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109254
The role of mental imagery in worry: Insights from aphantasia
Worry is characterised by thinking about prospective negative future outcomes, and is a key cognitive feature of anxiety. The influential Cognitive Avoidance Model suggests that worry involves visual imagery (mental pictures in the mind's eye) of negative potential outcomes, followed by the attempt to avoid such imagery due to its potentially aversive nature (e.g., by worrying in words instead). Here, we examine the role of imagery in worry by testing people with and without aphantasia – a profound weakness or absence of visual imagery. We show that although aphantasics (n = 59) are no different than imagers (n = 92) in their self-reported levels of day-to-day worry and anxiety, they possess a number of protective qualities: they are less likely to catastrophise in a catastrophising interview, and self-report being less threatened by their worries (in concern or cost), and less likely to cognitively avoid worrisome thoughts. Additionally, when their imagery deficit extends to all senses (dysikonesia), aphantasics are also better able to stop-worrying on command in a stop-worry task. Additionally, we examined the phenomenology of worry. We show that aphantasics report being less likely to worry via verbal-linguistic thought, nor visual imagery, or imagery of any kind (e.g., tactile, taste, smell, etc). Instead, aphantasics experience their worries as somatic symptoms, and abstract conceptual thought. Together, our findings demonstrate that while imagery is not required for worry, imagery plays an influential role, and lacking imagery provides a level of protection against certain worry traits.
Dance, C., Meeten, F., & Simner, J. (2025). The role of mental imagery in worry: insights from aphantasia. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 193, 104838. doi:/10.1016/j.brat.2025.104838
The potential risks of opening the mind’s eye with psychedelic therapies
Psychedelic therapy is gaining traction, but there's concern about reports that people with aphantasia may develop visual imagery after using psychedelics. While this sounds promising, strong mental imagery can be linked to various mental health issues. The effects on mental health and the ethical implications of such changes need careful consideration and further research.
Koenig-Robert, R., Keogh, R., & Pearson, J. (2025). The potential risks of opening the mind’s eye with psychedelic therapies. Cortex, 191, 167–171. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2025.08.002
Aphantasia and the unconscious imagery hypothesis
Recent research suggests that mental imagery can occur unconsciously, challenging the belief that it's solely a conscious experience. Individuals with aphantasia, who report no mental imagery, can still perform tasks requiring imagery and show signs of unconscious processing in their visual cortex. However, the evidence for unconscious imagery remains complex and requires further investigation.
Mckilliam, A., & Kirberg, M. (2025). Aphantasia and the unconscious imagery hypothesis. Consciousness and Cognition, 135, 103924. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2025.103924
Missing images: autobiographical memory in Aphantasia and blindness
Mental visual imagery is key to recalling vivid personal memories. Research shows that people with Aphantasia, who can't create mental images, struggle with recalling memories, while congenitally blind individuals may rely on other senses to construct mental scenes. Understanding these differences can improve our approach to memory disorders and mental health.
McCormick, C., & Lange, S. (2025). Missing images: autobiographical memory in aphantasia and blindness. Frontiers in Cognition, 4. doi:10.3389/fcogn.2025.1644533
Mental imagery abilities in different modalities moderate the efficacy of cognitive bias modification for interpretation bias in social anxiety
CBM-I helps reduce social anxiety by altering interpretation biases. Those with strong mental imagery abilities, especially in emotional feelings, benefit most. This internet-based training shows promise as a low-intensity intervention for social anxiety, highlighting the importance of mental imagery in its effectiveness.
Lam, C. L., Hin, A. S., Lau, L. N., Zhang, Z., & Leung, C. J. (2025). Mental imagery abilities in different modalities moderate the efficacy of cognitive bias modification for interpretation bias in social anxiety. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 88, 102031. doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2025.102031
Attention and visual imagery: how hyperphantasia influences novice shooters’ performance across different attentional foci
Studies suggest that an internal focus leads individuals to rely on kinaesthetic information, which is undesirable and hard to use for less-skilled individuals. On the other hand, visual imagery may facilitate the use of kinaesthetic information. In the present study, for the first time, we investigated if vividness of visual imagery modulates the effects of attentional focus on motor performance by comparing two groups of novice young shooters: (1) hyperphantasic individuals (i.e., individuals with visual imagery ability as vivid as real seeing; n = 21), and (2) mid-range visual imagers (i.e., individuals with normal vividness of visual imagery; n = 20). Shot accuracy, performance time, and aiming trace speed (stability of the hold) were measured to quantify young novices’ performance. Our results indicated that an internal focus resulted in less accurate shots in mid-range imagers compared with hyperphantasic individuals. Furthermore, within-group analyses revealed that while hyperphantasic participants maintained their levels of accuracy during different attentional focus conditions, mid-range visual imagers had less accurate shots during both internal and external relative to their performance under control condition. In addition, both groups demonstrated an increased Performance time during internal and external focus relative to the control condition. Finally, aiming trace speed increased during an external relative to an internal focus condition. In conclusion, the present study suggests that hyperphantasia may buffer the negative effects of suboptimal attentional focus strategies during the performance of accuracy tasks by allowing for the flexible use of different attentional cues.
Bahmani, M., Taghi Ghare-Bagh, M., & Nazemzadegan, G. (2025). Attention and visual imagery: how hyperphantasia influences novice shooters’ performance across different attentional foci. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 1–15. doi:10.1080/1612197x.2025.2547368
Why indecisive trials matter: Improving the binocular rivalry imagery priming score for the assessment of aphantasia
A new method for measuring mental imagery strength has been developed, improving on an existing binocular rivalry task. This enhanced approach better predicts individuals' self-reported imagery capacity, especially for those with aphantasia, a condition where people struggle to visualize images. The new scoring system is more reliable and effective for future research.
Monzel, M., Scholz, C. O., Pearson, J., & Reuter, M. (2025). Why indecisive trials matter: improving the binocular rivalry imagery priming score for the assessment of aphantasia. Behavior Research Methods, 57(9). doi:10.3758/s13428-025-02780-6
Aphantasia does not affect veridical and false memory: Evidence from the DRM paradigm
Aphantasia, a reduced ability to form mental images, doesn't affect the creation of false memories in verbal tasks. People with higher visual imagery might recall more but also make more errors. Aphantasia doesn't shield against false memories, suggesting visual tasks may be needed for further study.
Pauly-Takacs, K., Younus, S., Sigala, N., & Pfeifer, G. (2025). Aphantasia does not affect veridical and false memory: evidence from the drm paradigm. Consciousness and Cognition, 133, 103888. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2025.103888
The relationship between multilingualism and visual imagery: Investigating aphantasia using the VVIQ
Research shows that speaking multiple languages may enhance visual imagery abilities, potentially reducing the likelihood of aphantasia, a condition where individuals cannot visualize images in their minds. A study found that multilingual participants scored higher on a visual imagery test, suggesting that language fluency could boost cognitive processes related to mental imagery.
Li, Y., & Guan, P. (n.d.). The relationship between multilingualism and visual imagery: investigating aphantasia using the vviq. Journal of Emerging Investigators. doi:10.59720/24-185
Challenging dual-coding theory: Picture superiority is preserved in aphantasia
Research shows that people with aphantasia, who can't create mental images, still remember pictures and symbols better than words. This challenges the idea that memory relies solely on visual and verbal codes. Aphantasic individuals even recall symbols better than pictures, suggesting that memory works in ways beyond traditional theories, prompting a reevaluation of how we understand memory processes.
Yan, M., Roberts, B. R., & Bainbridge, W. A. (2025). Challenging dual-coding theory: picture superiority is preserved in aphantasia. Journal of Vision, 25(9), 1974. doi:10.1167/jov.25.9.1974
Decoding hierarchical visual feature representations in mental imagery of aphantasics
Mental imagery, regarded as a quasi-perceptual phenomenon, typically generates visual experiences without external stimuli and recruits neural representations associated with visual features that overlap with those used in visual perception. While these shared neural representations are often assumed to underlie the phenomenal aspects of conscious visual experiences, their contribution to subjective visual awareness remains unclear. Aphantasia, characterized by the subjective inability to voluntarily generate visual mental imagery, offers a unique opportunity to examine how mental images are represented without subjective visual experience and to test the relationship between neural representations and conscious experience. We thus measured brain activity in aphantasics as they viewed and imagined object images using functional magnetic resonance imaging, applying deep neural network (DNN) feature decoding to comprehensively analyze hierarchical visual feature representations across multiple levels. Decoding models were trained on stimulus-induced brain activity in visual cortical areas to predict feature values of viewed images. We then applied these models to imagery-induced brain activity to decode DNN features, comparing them with category-averaged features from a large-scale image database. Feature values decoded from imagery-induced brain activity positively correlated with those of imagined objects across multiple DNN layers, enabling above-chance identification of imagined object categories by matching them to averaged candidate features. Remarkably, while the decoding performance of aphantasics was somewhat lower, it approached that of typical imagers. These results demonstrate that neural representations of hierarchical visual features, shared with visual perception, are engaged during mental imagery in aphantasia, even without subjective visual awareness. This dissociation between neural representations and visual awareness highlights significant limitations in assuming that decodable neural representations directly reflect the neural correlates of consciousness. While supporting the presence of mental imagery, decodable representations alone fall short of fully explaining conscious experience, underscoring the need for cautious interpretation as evidence of consciousness.
Horikawa, T. (2025). Decoding hierarchical visual feature representations in mental imagery of aphantasics. Journal of Vision, 25(9), 1824. doi:10.1167/jov.25.9.1824
Individual variability in mental imagery vividness does not predict perceptual interference with imagery: A replication study of Cui et al. (2007).
A study with 241 participants found no link between mental imagery vividness and perceptual interference, challenging a 2007 study's findings. However, those who can project mental images externally (prophantasia) showed improved perceptual performance, suggesting a need to rethink how mental imagery affects perception.
Azañón, E., Pounder, Z., Figueroa, A., & Reeder, R. R. (2025). Individual variability in mental imagery vividness does not predict perceptual interference with imagery: a replication study of cui et al. (2007).. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 154(7), 2043–2057. doi:10.1037/xge0001756
Seeing Is Feeling: How Aphantasia Alters Emotional Engagement With Stories
Visual imagery enhances emotional engagement with stories. In experiments, participants reacted more strongly to video narratives than audio ones. Those with aphantasia, who can't create mental images, reported lower emotional responses and showed no heart rate changes across different formats, unlike controls. This highlights the importance of mental imagery in storytelling.
Abdelrahman, N., Melcher, D., & Ripollés, P. (2025). Seeing is feeling: how aphantasia alters emotional engagement with stories. Psychophysiology, 62(7). doi:10.1111/psyp.70100
Absence of shared representation in the visual cortex challenges unconscious imagery in aphantasia
Aphantasia is defined as the absence (or near-absence) of imagery experience, most commonly in but not necessarily limited to the visual modality. While the neural and cognitive underpinnings of aphantasia remain hotly debated (see Zeman1 for a recent review), a proposal that has recently gained attention is that people with aphantasia may have unconscious mental imagery2, meaning that despite lacking the experience associated with imagery, they may still possess the relevant neural activity. A recent article in Current Biology by Chang et al.3 reported finding ‘imageless imagery’ in aphantasic subjects, thus seemingly supporting this view. However, we argue here that the representations found in aphantasic subjects by Chang et al.3, as well as in other studies (e.g., by Liu et al.4,5), should not be viewed as unconscious imagery because they fail to show the perception-like pattern usually associated with mental imagery.
Scholz, C. O., Monzel, M., & Liu, J. (2025). Absence of shared representation in the visual cortex challenges unconscious imagery in aphantasia. Current Biology, 35(13), R645–R646. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2025.05.009
“Diversity makes the richness of humanity”: The emergence and persistence of mental imagery after self-reported psilocybin truffles intake in an autistic woman with “blind imagination” (aphantasia): A 33-month retrospective case report
An autistic woman with aphantasia experienced vivid mental imagery for the first time after consuming psilocybin truffles. Her ability to visualize persisted beyond the psychedelic effects, suggesting psilocybin's potential to alter mental imagery. This case highlights cognitive diversity and challenges the pathologization of aphantasia.
Rebecchi, K. (2025). “diversity makes the richness of humanity”: the emergence and persistence of mental imagery after self-reported psilocybin truffles intake in an autistic woman with “blind imagination” (aphantasia): a 33-month retrospective case report. Journal of Psychedelic Studies. doi:10.1556/2054.2025.00320
Dissociating voluntary mental imagery and mental simulation: Evidence from aphantasia
People with aphantasia, who can't visualize images in their mind, can still understand language through mental simulation, similar to those who can visualize. This suggests that visual imagery and mental simulation are distinct cognitive processes.
Speed, L. J., Geraerds, E. M. E., & McRae, K. (2025). Dissociating voluntary mental imagery and mental simulation: evidence from aphantasia. Memory & Cognition. doi:10.3758/s13421-025-01731-y