Research library
Papers about aphantasia and mental imagery, with summaries in plain words. The summaries are generated by AI and may contain errors.
Want to take part? See the studies you can join.
Running a study? We can help you recruit participants.
Lorenzatti · Philosophical Psychology
This philosophy paper weighs four explanations for why some people report no visual imagery: they describe the same experience differently, they fail to notice images they have, their brains form image-like representations they cannot consciously reach, or no such representations form and other strategies do the work. Drawing on studies of fear responses, binocular rivalry and pupil size, it rejects the first two and argues that the last fits the evidence best, though the third cannot be ruled out. It proposes eye-tracking, pupil and word-memory studies to tell these two apart.
Nanay · Mind & Language
This short reply to three commentaries on a 2023 book about mental imagery restates the book's view that aphantasia is not a single condition: many people with it still dream in images or have flashbacks but cannot call up images at will, which differs from having no conscious imagery at all. Most of the reply concerns other questions, chiefly how the book's idea that imagery forms part of everyday seeing differs from predictive processing theories, and how philosophy can work with the sciences of the mind. It reports no new data.
Silvanto · Frontiers in Psychology
In this short opinion piece, the author proposes that aphantasia arises when the insula, a brain region that tracks signals from inside the body, gives those signals too little weight. On this account, the frontal signals that should build an image are then too weak to activate visual areas, and the sense of control over one's own mental acts is weakened. Because the problem lies in voluntary control, the account fits reports that many people with aphantasia still dream in pictures. The author acknowledges that this is a theoretical model with limited direct evidence so far.
Phillips · Noûs
This philosophy paper argues that many people with aphantasia do well on tasks thought to need imagery because they keep spatial imagery (a sense of layout, shape and movement) while losing object imagery (color, brightness and detail). On this view, vividness questionnaires ask only about picture-like images, so spared spatial imagery goes unreported, and objective signs of missing imagery, such as no pupil response to imagined light, reflect only the lost object imagery. The paper reviews earlier studies rather than testing the idea, and suggests aphantasia is best seen as a family of different imagery losses.
Liu and colleagues · Cortex
In a 7-tesla brain imaging study of 10 people with aphantasia and 10 typical imagers, attempted imagery activated similar visual areas in both groups. In aphantasia, a key imagery region was less connected with frontal and parietal areas.
Silvanto and Nagai · Brain Topography
Researchers propose that mental imagery requires the integration of sensory information with internal physiological signals via the insula and anterior cingulate cortex. This suggests aphantasia may stem from a failure to ground sensory simulations in bodily experience.
Purkart and colleagues · Cognition
People with aphantasia did not show priming effects in tasks requiring mental imagery, unlike typical imagers. This provides objective behavioral evidence that aphantasia involves a genuine lack of both conscious and unconscious mental imagery.
Chang and colleagues · Current Biology
Researchers found that stimulus-specific information can be decoded from the early visual cortex of people with aphantasia during imagery attempts. This suggests that aphantasia involves a representational break between neural activity and conscious experience.
Arnold and colleagues · Cortex
Among university students, those who rated their imagery as less vivid were less likely to picture something, like a pink elephant, when told not to. This suggests weaker imagery may bring more resistance to unwanted images.
Krempel · Erkenntnis
A philosophy paper argues that wordless, imageless "unsymbolized" thoughts and total aphantasia challenge the view that conscious thought needs mental images. It concludes they are evidence that conscious thoughts can occur without imagery.
Monzel and colleagues · Psychophysiology
People with aphantasia achieved successful fear extinction through propositional thought despite lacking mental imagery. This suggests that imaginal exposure therapy may be effective for aphantasic individuals by relying on non-visual cognitive processes.
Michel and colleagues · Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Aphantasia may involve nonconscious imagistic representations that lack phenomenal awareness, similar to blindsight. This suggests the condition is primarily a deficit of conscious access rather than a total absence of mental imagery.
Argueta and colleagues · Consciousness and Cognition
A review of 52 aphantasia studies concludes it is a visual deficit, not a mental disorder. Memory was the most studied topic, but most memory evidence was self-reported and some objective tests found no difference.
Bruder and Zehra
Researchers found significant cultural differences in mental imagery vividness, with WEIRD and South-East Asian groups reporting higher levels than those from the Middle East and North Africa. This highlights the need to consider cultural factors when studying imagery across all senses.
Mawtus and colleagues · Collabra: Psychology
Among people reporting a mental health condition, fewer with aphantasia than imagers reported intrusive sensory symptoms (31% vs 74%), and they found visual imagery in therapy less helpful. The authors urge adapting techniques to the person.
Zeman and colleagues · Cortex
This short definition, published in a special issue of the journal Cortex, describes aphantasia as the absence or near-absence of imagery, most often the inability to picture things while fully awake, as opposed to simply thinking about them. Aphantasia affects deliberate imagery, may affect spontaneous imagery, and often leaves imagery in dreams intact. It can be lifelong or acquired, and the note proposes labels such as visual, auditory, multisensory and global aphantasia, while recording that some researchers keep the word for vision alone.
Williams and Suggate · Imagination, Cognition and Personality
People with low imagery reported being less absorbed in stories, especially in seeing scenes and feeling transported, yet still enjoyed reading. This suggests imagery shapes how reading feels more than whether people like it.
Monzel, Karneboge and Reuter · Biomarkers in Neuropsychiatry
Aphantasia is linked to reduced physiological and self-reported sympathy for verbal scenarios and slower emotion recognition in others. This suggests mental imagery is a key mechanism for amplifying emotional and empathic responses.
Eker, Ozer and Gencel · International Journal on Studies in Education
Students and graduates with aphantasia reported slightly higher undergraduate grades than others and differed only in learning orientation. This suggests lacking visual imagery did not hold back academic achievement in this group.
Montabes de la Cruz and colleagues · Current Biology
Twenty-three people with aphantasia listened to recorded sound scenes of a forest, a crowd and traffic while blindfolded in a brain scanner. The type of sound could mostly not be read from their early visual areas, except in two small regions, although it could be in earlier studies of sighted and blind people. The drop was clear against a small blind group but not statistically reliable against 10 sighted people scanned years before. The authors suggest that signals from hearing areas into the visual cortex may be weaker in aphantasia, not only those used for imagery.