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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Delem and colleagues · Neuropsychologia
Researchers found that individuals with aphantasia scored lower across all sensory imagery modalities but performed similarly to controls on spatial and cognitive tasks. This suggests that multisensory imagery deficits do not hinder general cognitive or spatial reasoning abilities.
Bartolomeo · Neuropsychologia
In a short conceptual paper, the author proposes sorting aphantasia into at least three forms: neurological, psychogenic and congenital. He offers it as an initial taxonomy for research that has reached contradictory conclusions.
Larner · Neuropsychologia
Historical reports of congenital and acquired aphantasia exist dating back to the late 19th century. This provides a sound epistemic basis for the retrospective diagnosis of aphantasia and supports its status as a transhistorical condition.
Nanay · Neuropsychologia
Aphantasia is not a monolithic condition but a heterogeneous spectrum with diverse underlying causes. Recognizing this complexity helps researchers better understand the interpersonal differences in imagery vividness across the entire population.
Zeman · Neuropsychologia
Ten years after aphantasia was named, Adam Zeman argues it likely has several subtypes and that most abilities are spared, with memory for one's own past differing most. He urges an open mind in this young field.
Muraki and Pexman · Neuropsychologia
People with aphantasia showed typical semantic processing effects for both motor and visual word properties. This indicates that conscious mental imagery is not required for the sensorimotor simulations that support word meaning.
Kvamme, Sandberg and Silvanto · Neuropsychologia
In this short opinion piece, with no new data, the authors propose that vivid imagery belongs to a wider habit of paying attention to one's own inner life: body signals, emotions and thoughts. They link this habit to openness, conscientiousness and extraversion, and expect it to run opposite to difficulty recognizing and describing feelings. They leave open whether turning attention inward builds imagery or vivid imagery draws attention inward, and warn that vividness ratings may partly reflect personality and habits of description.
Palombo and colleagues · Neuropsychologia
Three healthy adults who cannot relive past events scored normally on most memory tests but poorly when recalling visual details. The authors suggest the problem lies in handling visual information within memory for one's own life.
Zeman and colleagues · Neuropsychologia
A man who suddenly lost his visual imagery still passed imagery and visual memory tests, but his brain worked differently when he tried to picture faces. This suggests imagery tasks can be done without the experience of seeing.