Three ways to engage with aphantasia research on the Network.
Explore a comprehensive collection of academic papers, research studies, and scientific publications about aphantasia, imagery, and cognitive neuroscience.
Researchers found that five days of mental imagery training improved participants' metacognitive accuracy but did not increase imagery strength. This suggests that introspective ability and imagery production rely on distinct neural mechanisms.
Rademaker, R. L., & Pearson, J. (n.d.). Training visual imagery: improvements of metacognition, but not imagery strength. Frontiers in Psychology, 3. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00224
Researchers found that Akhter Ahsen’s ISM model anticipated modern findings on the embodied and emotional nature of mental imagery. This suggests historical clinical frameworks can help bridge the gap between neuroscience and therapeutic practice.
Syed, A., & Neelofur, S. (n.d.). A narrative review of eidetic imagery and the early architecture of mental imagery research: revisiting akhter ahsen’s foundational contributions. Medical Research Archives. doi:10.18103/mra.v14i4.7364
Researchers propose an Emergent Property Framework where imagery arises from coordinated activity across a network of brain regions. This explains why aphantasia presents with diverse multisensory profiles and varying cognitive impacts.
Arnold, D. H., Bouyer, L. N., Saurels, B. W., & Schwarzkopf, D. S. (2026). Congenital aphantasia: what we (think we) know, what we thought we knew but were mistaken about, and what we don't know. Consciousness and Cognition, 145, 104120. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2026.104120
Aphantasic individuals showed eye movement patterns similar to visualizers when exploring mental maps despite reporting no subjective imagery. This suggests aphantasia may reflect reduced metacognitive access to imagery rather than a total absence of representational content.
Takamura, Y., Coustaty, S., Liu, J., Razzak, E., Pouget, P., Spagna, A., & Bartolomeo, P. (2026). Similar eye movements in aphantasia and visualizers during mental map exploration. Cortex, 203, 48–73. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2026.06.010
Autistic aphantasics are more likely to be verbal thinkers, while non-autistic aphantasics report more intact multisensory imagery. This highlights how neurodivergence shapes the diverse cognitive and emotional lived experiences of aphantasia.
Zhong, S., Jones, K., Knight, K. F., Milton, F., Russell, G., Zeman, A., & Happé, F. (2026). Exploring the experiences of autistic and non-autistic aphantasics: a qualitative study. Neuropsychologia, 231, 109540. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2026.109540
Aphantasia is defined as a variety of absence of voluntary mental imagery and is known to affect 3.9% of the population. Over time, aphantasia has been linked to ‘deficit’ and ‘defective visualisation’, ‘impaired ability’ and even ‘mental illness’. However, others, such as Monzel et al., have argued for aphantasia to be reframed as a neurodiversity. The reconceptualisation of aphantasia as an ‘intriguing variation in human experience’ demands more nuanced research that explores the lived experiences of those with aphantasia and its impact on learning and education from a non-tragic, non-deficit lens. Thus, this small-scale research project was conducted, employing a qualitative, single-method design with one cohort of undergraduate Education Studies students to meet this gap. Firstly, the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ-2) was used to recruit four students who showed aphantasia traits, self-identified as aphantasic, and who agreed to participate in semi-structured interviews. The research explored the impact of aphantasic traits on learning and the various alternative processing strategies that students developed to manage these traits throughout their educational journeys. The authors intend to use these initial findings to begin a conversation on how inclusive practices can be improved and to promote awareness and the development of effective learning strategies that are tailored to the particular learning needs of students with aphantasia.
Hing, J. C., & Sibley-White, A. (2026). Reframing aphantasia as neurodiversity: exploring learning barriers and alternative processing strategies. Educating Young People for a Sustainable Future, 133–151. doi:10.1108/978-1-83662-022-820261008
Participants with aphantasia reported significantly higher ability to generate kinaesthetic imagery compared to visual imagery, especially when primed by physical action. This suggests kinaesthetic imagery can function independently of visual imagery.
Wright, D. J., Scott, M. W., Esselaar, M., Braithwaite, E. C., & Holmes, P. S. (2026). Motor imagery abilities in individuals who experience aphantasia. Neuropsychologia, 230, 109530. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2026.109530
Jablonka, E., & Cohen, S. R. (2026). Aphantasia and the evolution of language. Trends Open. doi:10.1016/j.treopn.2026.08.010
Elementary students reported higher rates of aphantasia and hyperphantasia than adults, with a single-question test showing high validity. This highlights the need for teachers to provide alternative learning strategies for non-visualizers.
Stewart, P., & Brick Taft, M. (2026). What if your mind's eye can't see?. Journal of the International Society for Teacher Education, 30(1), 164–175. doi:10.26522/jiste.v30i1.5311
Aphantasic individuals showed a greater accuracy drop than controls when backward masking disrupted visual pattern completion. This suggests that aphantasia involves weakened recurrent neural processing that affects both imagery and perception.
Loo, C., & Buchsbaum, B. R. (2026). Fragile recurrent processing in aphantasia: evidence from visual pattern completion. Consciousness and Cognition, 143, 104100. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2026.104100
Researchers propose that mental imagery is a modulation of bodily orientation rather than a neural simulation. This suggests aphantasia is a specific inability to willfully conjure sensory-like presence through this bodily imagination.
Deery, J. (2026). Imaginary presence—merleau-ponty and mental imagery. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. doi:10.1007/s11097-026-10184-w
Aphantasics showed improved lineup identification accuracy after providing verbal descriptions of a perpetrator. This suggests that individuals without mental imagery rely on verbal strategies to compensate for visual memory deficits.
Kleider-Offutt, H. M., & Meacham, A. M. (2026). When words paint the picture: accurate eyewitness ids without visual imagery. Psychology, Crime & Law, 1–23. doi:10.1080/1068316x.2026.2700782
Researchers found that a 16-year-old with HSAM exhibited typical visual imagery vividness but significantly higher rates of involuntary memories. This suggests that superior memory may be driven by retrieval frequency rather than imagery ability.
Cleary, A. M., Okada, N., Bearden, D. J., Alfonso, D., Mills, C., Neisser, J., McNeely-White, K. L., Pedersen, N. P., & Drane, D. L. (2026). A case of highly superior autobiographical memory (hsam) accompanied by highly frequent involuntary autobiographical memory. Neurocase, 32(4), 152–166. doi:10.1080/13554794.2026.2701703
Researchers found that mental imagery and emotion share a common generative substrate in the brain's interoceptive system. This suggests imagery disturbances across various conditions are direct consequences of underlying interoceptive dysfunction.
Kvamme, T. L., Nagai, Y., & Silvanto, J. (2026). Imagery in affective and neurodevelopmental conditions: an insula-based interoceptive framework. Trends Open. doi:10.1016/j.treopn.2026.06.003
Aphantasia reveals that abstract thought does not require the capacity to manipulate mental images. This suggests that higher-level cognition can function independently of imagistic processes.
Tooming, U., & Jakapi, R. (2026). Aphantasia as a challenge for humean abstraction. Neuropsychologia, 227, 109465. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2026.109465
Researchers found that Western musical modes elicit systematic patterns of visual and olfactory imagery. This indicates musical modes are associated with multiple sensory representations extending beyond simple feature-level correspondences.
Pimentel Aldaz, O., & Spence, C. (2026). Seeing scent in sound: exploratory spontaneous visual and olfactory mental imagery elicited by musical modes. Multisensory Research, 1–45. doi:10.1163/22134808-bja10200
Older adults reported more vivid visual and multisensory imagery, while aphantasia was more prevalent in younger groups. This suggests that age should be considered when identifying aphantasia and setting diagnostic thresholds.
Takahashi, J., Omura, K., & Sugimura, S. (2026). Age differences in visual and multisensory imagery: notes on distributions of aphantasia and hyperphantasia in individuals aged 20s–70s. Neuropsychologia, 226, 109433. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2026.109433
VVIQ items showed high redundancy for identifying aphantasia, with inter-item correlations ranging from .79 to .90. A single screening question about visualizing a familiar place achieved high specificity (98.8%) and sensitivity (97.5%) against the strictest definition of core aphantasia (VVIQ = 16), suggesting the full 16-item questionnaire is unnecessary for screening purposes.
Monzel, M., Pickering, J. W., Condon, D. M., Beran, M. J., & Ebeyer, T. (2026). Reimagining the vividness of visual imagery questionnaire as a single item screener for aphantasia. Consciousness and Cognition, 142, 104061. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2026.104061
Researchers discovered that aphantasia and vividness judgements are compromised by poorly defined references for typical imagery. This indicates that current measures like the VVIQ may be invalid and misleading.
Sulfaro, A. A. (2026). Mental image vividness and aphantasia judgements are fundamentally compromised by overlooked definition problems. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 33(5). doi:10.3758/s13423-026-02928-1
Aphantasics showed normal visual working memory performance and decodable neural representations in the visual cortex. This suggests aphantasia is a lack of conscious awareness rather than an inability to generate or store visual information.
Knight, K. F., Milton, F., & Zeman, A. (2026). Aphantasia and visual working memory: no direct evidence of impaired visual working memory in aphantasics, either in behavioral performance or the accuracy of a multivoxel pattern classifier. Neuropsychologia, 226, 109430. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2026.109430
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