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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Silvanto · Frontiers in Psychology
Mental imagery likely evolved from interoceptive processing to provide affectively-grounded simulations for decision-making. This suggests that aphantasia may stem from a decoupling of sensory information and internal bodily signals.
Cavazos and colleagues · Frontiers in Psychology
Students with aphantasia did not differ from students with vivid imagery in broad study approaches, and described workarounds such as lists and talking things through. This suggests imagery helps some learners but is not needed to learn.
Cui, Kong and Zhang · Frontiers in Psychology
Aphantasic participants showed muted neural responses and minimal autonomic changes during romantic imagery compared to those with vivid imagery. This suggests that mental imagery is a crucial driver of physiological and emotional arousal.
Silvanto · Frontiers in Psychology
Aphantasia may stem from reduced interceptive precision in the insula, which disrupts the sense of agency and embodiment needed for mental imagery. This suggests that imagery relies on the integration of internal bodily states and top-down predictions.
Wright and colleagues · Frontiers in Psychology
Researchers found that 0.9% of people have aphantasia and 3.3% have hypophantasia in a large global sample. This highlights the need to account for imagery differences in research and clinical settings.
Bouyer and Arnold · Frontiers in Psychology
Deep aphantasia may involve atypical sensory experiences where perception is minimally shaped by prior expectations or feedback. This suggests some forms of aphantasia impact both voluntary imagery and the processing of actual visual inputs.
Incekara and Blom · Frontiers in Psychology
Analysis of Carl Jung's self-reports suggests his anomalous experiences stemmed from hyperphantasia rather than a psychotic disorder. This indicates that extremely vivid imagery can cross a reality threshold and be misidentified as psychosis.
Takahashi and colleagues · Frontiers in Psychology
Researchers found aphantasia involves diverse sensory profiles, with discrepancies between diagnostic criteria often driven by face recognition abilities. This indicates that multiple assessments are required to accurately identify imagery subtypes.
Cavedon-Taylor · Frontiers in Psychology
Aphantasia may primarily involve a lack of voluntary imagery while leaving involuntary imagery intact. This distinction suggests that aphantasics might still be susceptible to psychological disorders driven by intrusive, non-voluntary mental images.
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.
MacKisack and colleagues · Frontiers in Psychology
The paper traces the long philosophical history of mental imagery, from Aristotelian "phantasma" to behaviorist skepticism. This historical context reveals that modern neuroscientific debates over imagery's role in cognition are rooted in centuries of conflicting intellectual traditions.
Jung, Flores and Hunter · Frontiers in Psychology
The Hunter Imagination Questionnaire (HIQ) scores correlate with brain volumes in regions linked to memory, visualization, and the default mode network. This provides a validated tool to study the neural basis of imagination as a complex, naturalistic construct.
Arshamian and Larsson · Frontiers in Psychology
Olfactory imagery shares many features with visual and auditory modalities, yet most people struggle to recreate smells mentally. This highlights significant individual variation and suggests that olfactory imagery is uniquely difficult to access.
Rademaker and Pearson · Frontiers in Psychology
Researchers found that five days of mental imagery training improved participants' metacognitive accuracy but did not increase imagery strength. This suggests that introspective ability and imagery production rely on distinct neural mechanisms.