What This Paper Is About

This is an editorial introducing a 2026 special issue of the journal L'Année psychologique / Topics in Cognitive Psychology on aphantasia. It reports no new study. The authors describe aphantasia as the absence of voluntary mental imagery. They ask what it can tell us about whether imagery is needed for memory, planning and aesthetic appreciation, and how its absence shapes identity, social life and perception.

The Argument

The main claim is that aphantasia "is not a monolithic condition but rather a multifaceted phenomenon," with consequences for thinking, perception, emotion and social life. The steps:

Since the start of scientific psychology, mental imagery has been linked to memory, imagination, problem-solving and emotion. Pioneers such as Galton and Binet debated its vividness and purpose.

In the 1980s, researchers argued over whether mental images are stored as abstract, language-like descriptions or as picture-like representations.

According to the authors, brain imaging in the 1990s revealed that regions used in imagery partly overlap with those used in perception. They say this suggests images closely resemble perceptions.

Aphantasia, first described by Zeman and colleagues in 2015, challenges the idea that everyone has mental imagery and so reopens that old debate.

The field, they argue, has moved from isolated case reports to systematic experiments, brain imaging and large surveys.

What It Draws On

The support is the five articles in the issue, each described in one sentence:

One article reports that people with hypophantasia (faint imagery) did less well specifically on memory for object details in working memory (holding information briefly in mind).

One reports that imagery vividness was linked to judgments of whether something moving is alive.

One tested pupil size as an objective measure of imagery strength and had trouble replicating earlier findings.

One used a listening test to study auditory verbal imagery (hearing words in the mind). It highlights differences between people with and without it, and notes that measurement is still limited.

One reports that, when people judged textures by sight, how much they liked a texture was linked to aphantasia more than how beautiful they rated it.

The editorial gives no sample sizes, methods or statistics. On its own, it does not let a reader judge how strong any of these results is.

What This Might Mean

If the authors are right, cognitive science could use this variation between people to refine its models of the mind. They name open problems:

finding robust, objective markers that imagery is absent

drawing clearer boundaries between visual, auditory and spatial aphantasia

applying the research in education, clinical practice and technology design

The trouble replicating the pupil findings suggests that an objective test is not yet settled. The editorial also does not separate lifelong aphantasia from aphantasia acquired after an injury or illness.

One Interesting Detail

One article carries the title I spy with my little eye something that moves vividly. According to the editorial, aphantasic participants in that study leaned toward judging moving things as inanimate rather than alive.

Research L’Année psychologique

Aphantasia: New Perspectives on Mental Imagery and Cognition

Cavalli and PlancherSeptember 2026

Read the paper

Abstract
What This Paper Is About
The Argument
What It Draws On
What This Might Mean
One Interesting Detail
Authors
Cite this paper

Abstract

Mental imagery has long been recognized as a core component of human cognition. Since the dawn of scientific psychology, it has been associated with memory, imagination, problem-solving, and emotion. The vividness and functional significance of imagery were debated by pioneers like Galton and Binet and the topic has continued to attract attention ever since. In the 1980s, a central controversy in cognitive psychology concerned the nature of the internal representations underlying mental imagery. Two opposing views emerged: one defended a symbolic format—abstract, amodal, language-like propositions (Pylyshyn, 1981)—while the other advocated a pictorial format, in which imagery relies on perceptual-like representations that depict rather than describe experience (Kosslyn, Behrmann, & Jeannerod, 1995). The advent of neuroimaging in the 1990s helped clarify this debate by showing that brain regions involved in mental imagery partially overlap with those recruited during perception (Kosslyn, Thompson, & Ganis, 2006). These findings suggest that mental images are encoded in an analog fashion, closely resembling percepts. However more recently, scientific interest in imagery has been revived by the study of aphantasia, a condition characterized by the absence of voluntary mental imagery. First described by Zeman and colleagues (2015), aphantasia challenges the assumption that mental imagery is a universal feature of human cognition and offers a unique opportunity to reassess its role in both cognitive and emotional life.

Our summary in plain words

What This Paper Is About

The Argument

The main claim is that aphantasia "is not a monolithic condition but rather a multifaceted phenomenon," with consequences for thinking, perception, emotion and social life. The steps:

Since the start of scientific psychology, mental imagery has been linked to memory, imagination, problem-solving and emotion. Pioneers such as Galton and Binet debated its vividness and purpose.

In the 1980s, researchers argued over whether mental images are stored as abstract, language-like descriptions or as picture-like representations.

According to the authors, brain imaging in the 1990s revealed that regions used in imagery partly overlap with those used in perception. They say this suggests images closely resemble perceptions.

Aphantasia, first described by Zeman and colleagues in 2015, challenges the idea that everyone has mental imagery and so reopens that old debate.

The field, they argue, has moved from isolated case reports to systematic experiments, brain imaging and large surveys.

What It Draws On

The support is the five articles in the issue, each described in one sentence:

One article reports that people with hypophantasia (faint imagery) did less well specifically on memory for object details in working memory (holding information briefly in mind).

One reports that imagery vividness was linked to judgments of whether something moving is alive.

One tested pupil size as an objective measure of imagery strength and had trouble replicating earlier findings.

One used a listening test to study auditory verbal imagery (hearing words in the mind). It highlights differences between people with and without it, and notes that measurement is still limited.

One reports that, when people judged textures by sight, how much they liked a texture was linked to aphantasia more than how beautiful they rated it.

The editorial gives no sample sizes, methods or statistics. On its own, it does not let a reader judge how strong any of these results is.

What This Might Mean

If the authors are right, cognitive science could use this variation between people to refine its models of the mind. They name open problems:

finding robust, objective markers that imagery is absent

drawing clearer boundaries between visual, auditory and spatial aphantasia

applying the research in education, clinical practice and technology design

One Interesting Detail

This is an editorial introducing a 2026 special issue of the journal L'Année psychologique / Topics in Cognitive Psychology

This summary was written with AI and may contain errors. Check the original paper.

Authors

Eddy Cavalli
4 papers in the library
Gaën Plancher
7 papers in the library

Cite this paper

Cavalli, E., & Plancher, G. (2026). Aphantasia: new perspectives on mental imagery and cognition. L’Année psychologique, Vol. 126(2), 99–101. doi:10.3917/anpsy1.262.0099

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Motor imagery abilities in individuals who experience aphantasia

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People with aphantasia rated feeling a movement in the mind as hard but easier than seeing it, especially right after doing the movement. This suggests kinesthetic imagery may exist without visual imagery, though weakly.

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