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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Dance, Meeten and Simner · Behaviour Research and Therapy
Aphantasics catastrophise less and feel less threatened by worries despite reporting similar overall anxiety levels as controls. This suggests that while mental imagery is not required for worry, it may amplify its perceived severity.
Cabbai and colleagues · Current Biology
In an fMRI study, the type of sound people with aphantasia heard could be decoded from their primary visual cortex, though they reported no imagery. A higher region, the precuneus, tracked whether imagery was experienced.
Cabbai and colleagues · Cortex
A dot matching the color of a searched-for object pulled attention as strongly in 91 people with aphantasia as in 231 without, and imagery vividness made no difference. None of the aphantasic group reported using imagery to search.
Dance, Hole and Simner · Cortex
Aphantasics performed worse on face recognition tasks but were just as accurate as controls at constructing face composites from memory. This suggests that while visual imagery facilitates face recognition, it is not required for accurate face recall.
Monzel and colleagues · Consciousness and Cognition
People with aphantasia performed no differently from others on a memory task but felt less confident, and imagery was not linked to school grades. The authors argue aphantasia is neutral neurodivergence and a disorder label may do harm.
Simner and Dance · Cortex
Researchers debated whether to use dysikonesia or aphantasia as a broad term for multi-sensory imagery deficits. This discussion highlights how precise terminology is vital for accurately categorizing and studying diverse imagery experiences.
Monzel and colleagues · Cortex
Researchers propose defining aphantasia as the absence or reduction of voluntary sensory imagery across any modality. This unified terminology avoids a proliferation of new terms while acknowledging that imagery deficits can be specific or multisensory.
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'.
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.
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.
Milton and colleagues · Cerebral Cortex Communications
People with aphantasia matched others on standard memory tests but recalled fewer details of past events and imagined scenes. The authors suggest weaker links between frontal control areas and visual areas may explain the missing imagery.
Dance and colleagues · Consciousness and Cognition
Across two large samples, grapheme-color synesthesia was as common in people with aphantasia as in others. In a separate study, 118 people with aphantasia reported more autistic traits than controls, mainly in imagination and social skills.