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.
Dawes and colleagues · Cognition
People with aphantasia described past and imagined future events with fewer event-specific details, mainly visual ones, especially for the future. This suggests visual imagery helps people rebuild events in rich detail.
Simner and Dance · Cortex
This reply to a call to use "aphantasia" for missing imagery in any sense defends the umbrella term "dysikonesia," with separate names for each sense, such as aphantasia for vision and anauralia for hearing. It points out that "aphantasia" was first used for visual imagery, warns from the history of synesthesia research that one name for different conditions can mislead studies, and notes that many people read "aphantasia" as an inability to fantasize. It accepts that "aphantasia" could be widened if the change in meaning is acknowledged, and that usage will settle over time.
Palermo and colleagues · Consciousness and Cognition
In an online survey of 490 Italian adults, about 3% scored very low on a questionnaire's object imagery scale (pictures of things) and 3.5% on its spatial scale (layouts and rotation), with smaller groups at the high end. The low object group reported weak or missing images of faces, objects and events, yet still reported dream images; the low spatial group reported trouble mainly with mental rotation. Both low groups reported a poorer sense of direction, but neither differed reliably from controls on everyday memory or face recognition. Nearly all measures were self-report.
Furman and colleagues · Neurocase
A 35-year-old man with lifelong aphantasia scored in the normal range or above on standard tests and high on mental rotation, which he said he solved with a body-based, non-visual strategy. His EEG was recorded as he looked at a face and then tried to picture it. For picturing, estimated brain activity began in left temporal rather than frontal areas, with no significant activity in rear visual areas or in a parietal area linked to imagery within 300 milliseconds. It is a single case with no comparison person, which the authors call only a first step.
Monzel and colleagues · Cortex
In a short reply within a debate over names, the authors argue for keeping one term, aphantasia, for absent or markedly reduced voluntary imagery in any sense, with a word added for the sense involved, such as visual or auditory aphantasia, or multisensory aphantasia when all senses are affected. They describe hyperphantasia as the opposite: imagery said to rival real perception. They note that many people with aphantasia report rare spontaneous flashes of imagery or imagery in dreams, and that lacking imagery does not mean lacking imagination.
Takahashi and colleagues
Researchers found that aphantasia often involves a lack of imagery across multiple senses, not just vision. This highlights the importance of using multi-sensory assessments to fully capture the diverse experiences of those with aphantasia.
Monzel, Vetterlein and Reuter · Journal of Neuropsychology
In an online study, 67 people with aphantasia and 32 people with more imagery, grouped by an imagery questionnaire, did four timed memory tasks: recalling spoken words, redrawing seven lines they had just seen, recognizing the earlier words in a longer list, and picking out and completing complex shapes seen earlier. The aphantasia group scored lower on average, by a small to moderate margin, and the gap did not differ reliably between tasks. The authors suggest imagery supports memory even for words, but the study was not preregistered and they note that missing imagery may not be the direct cause.
Monzel and colleagues · Cortex
Five researchers argue that 'aphantasia' already covers missing imagery in any sense and should stay the single term. They suggest 'auditory' or 'multisensory aphantasia' rather than new words such as 'anauralia' and 'dysikonesia'.
Kay and colleagues · eLife
Individuals with aphantasia do not show the pupillary light response when attempting to imagine bright or dark objects. This provides an objective physiological marker confirming that aphantasia involves a genuine lack of visual sensory imagery.
Pounder and colleagues · Cortex
Twenty people with aphantasia were as accurate as 20 typical imagers on tests of memory, spatial span, planning and mental rotation. Differences appeared only in speed: they slowed more than controls as a planning puzzle got harder.
Fox-Muraton · Analiza i Egzystencja
In this philosophy essay, an author with aphantasia argues that people without imagery must use words for experiences they lack, so aphantasia is described only as a lack. She urges researchers to notice how their wording shapes answers.
Dance, Ipser and Simner · Consciousness and Cognition
Screening 1,004 people who did not know the study was about imagery, researchers found that 3.9% had aphantasia and 0.8% had no imagery at all. This suggests a useful benchmark for how common aphantasia is.
Hinwar and Lambert · Frontiers in Psychology
In 128 adults, many recruited through aphantasia groups, self-rated visual and auditory imagery were strongly linked, and 82% of 34 aphantasic people had absent or nearly absent auditory imagery. Rare exceptions showed the two can come apart.
Keogh, Wicken and Pearson · Cortex
People with aphantasia remembered visual patterns as well as people with imagery, but reported non-visual strategies such as labeling. This suggests imagery is only one of several tools people can use to hold visual information in mind.
Dance, Ward and Simner · Perception
Aphantasics reported significantly lower sensory sensitivity and multi-sensory imagery deficits compared to controls. This suggests aphantasia is a widespread multi-sensory condition rather than one limited to visual imagery.
Monzel, Keidel and Reuter · Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics
In an online task, people who reported aphantasia were slightly slower than others to pick out a pictured object they had been asked to imagine, but not a written word. The authors conclude imagery-guided attention is reduced in aphantasia.
Königsmark, Bergmann and Reeder · Cortex
People with aphantasia are significantly less likely to experience vivid or complex pseudo-hallucinations during rhythmic flicker stimulation. This suggests that the ability to generate voluntary mental imagery increases susceptibility to anomalous perceptual experiences.
Knowles, Jones and Zeman · Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry
In 88 people who lost their visual imagery, the commonest triggers were head injury, mood disorders and stroke. This suggests acquired aphantasia can follow both neurological and psychological disorders.
Gaber and Eltemamy · Progress in Neurology and Psychiatry
A 59-year-old woman found she could no longer picture her house or family in her mind after a mild case of COVID-19. The authors suggest that uncommon problems like this acquired aphantasia can follow even mild COVID-19.
Whiteley · Philosophical Studies
This philosophy paper uses reports that most people with aphantasia still have visual dreams to test the view that dreams are a kind of imagining. The author argues this undercuts the version in which all imagery is something we actively do, but not a version in which dreams involve passive, involuntary imagination. The paper proposes testing whether people with aphantasia can learn lucid dreaming, in which dreamers know they are dreaming and can sometimes control the dream.