Research library
Papers about aphantasia and mental imagery, with summaries in plain words. The summaries are generated by AI and may contain errors.
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Carrasco and Ridout · Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance
In two experiments with US students, one group smelled pairs of 16 everyday scratch-and-sniff odors, such as chocolate and leather, and rated how similar they were, while another group heard only the names and rated how similar the imagined smells were. Maps of both sets of ratings shared main dimensions such as fruitiness, strength and familiarity, which the authors take as evidence that people can imagine smells. The imagined map was looser than the real one, and the authors question how close the link is, though they argue that knowledge about the objects cannot fully explain the match.
McCrae and John · Journal of Personality
This introduction to a special issue sets out the five-factor model of personality: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience. The authors trace how studies of everyday trait words and of personality questionnaires arrived at the same five broad dimensions, and review evidence that the five appear in self-reports and others' ratings and in several languages, and stay stable in adults over decades. They propose the model as a working hypothesis and shared framework for personality research, while granting it is not a full theory of personality.
Marks · British Journal of Psychology
Subjects reporting vivid visual imagery were significantly more accurate in recalling pictorial details than those with poor imagery. This provides evidence that visual images play a functional role in facilitating human memory.
Galton · Mind
Francis Galton discovered that mental imagery vividness varies significantly across individuals, with some reporting no visual imagery at all. This established that subjective internal experiences are not universal and can be scientifically categorized.
Syed and Neelofur · Medical Research Archives
This narrative review looks back at the work of Akhter Ahsen, who from the 1960s described vivid mental images as units of picture, bodily feeling and meaning, and built a therapy around them. It argues that later research, such as work on imagery as an emotional amplifier and on imagery rescripting, echoes his ideas without citing him, and calls for his work to be brought back into the field. The paper presents no new data, and Ahsen himself rejected randomized trials in favor of case material.