ResearchFrontiers in Psychology
Interoception, insula, and agency: a predictive coding account of aphantasia
SilvantoMay 2025
Abstract
Aphantasia-the inability to consciously experience mental imagery-has emerged as one of the most intriguing phenomena in cognitive psychology and neuroscienc...
Our summary in plain words
What This Study Is About
This research explores a new theory about why some people have aphantasia—the inability to voluntarily visualize images in their mind. It proposes that aphantasia might be caused by how the brain processes "interoception" (internal body signals like heart rate) and the "sense of agency" (the feeling that you are the one causing your own thoughts and actions).
How They Studied It
This paper is a theoretical "opinion" piece rather than a new laboratory experiment. The researcher reviewed existing studies on brain anatomy, "predictive coding" (how the brain predicts what it will see or feel), and aphantasia. They specifically looked at the role of the insula, a brain region that acts as a hub for internal body sensations, to build a model of how mental imagery is generated.
What They Found
The researcher proposes that for a mental image to become conscious, the brain must "tag" it as being self-generated and give it a sense of "embodiment." In people with aphantasia, the theory suggests that the insula may not be providing enough "gain" or strength to these internal signals. Because the brain doesn't feel a strong sense of control or bodily connection to the internal "prediction" of an image, the image never reaches conscious awareness.
What This Might Mean
This suggests that aphantasia isn't just a "broken projector" in the visual part of the brain, but rather a difference in how the brain monitors its own internal states. If this theory is correct, it could explain why many people with aphantasia can still have vivid dreams: dreaming is involuntary, so it doesn't require the same "sense of agency" or voluntary control that waking visualization does. However, because this is currently a theoretical model, more brain-scanning studies are needed to prove the link between the insula and aphantasia.
One Interesting Detail
The study highlights that while most people with aphantasia cannot picture things while awake, about 63% of them still experience visual dreams, suggesting the brain's "image-making" hardware is often intact but works differently depending on whether the person is trying to control it.
This summary was written with AI and may contain errors. Check the original paper.
Authors
Juha Silvanto
15 papers in the library
Cite this paper
Silvanto, J. (2025). Interoception, insula, and agency: a predictive coding account of aphantasia. Frontiers in Psychology, 16. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1564251
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