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Dissociating voluntary mental imagery and mental simulation: Evidence from aphantasia

Speed, Geraerds and McRae · Memory & Cognition

Thirty people with aphantasia and 29 typical imagers decided whether one word named a physical part of another (is a mane part of a lion?). Both groups were equally fast and accurate, and both were slower, by a similar amount, when the wrong answers were related words, which forces a closer check. In that version, ratings of each part's perceptual features predicted response times in both groups, which the authors read as automatic, unconscious simulation that does not need conscious imagery, though an abstract, non-visual strategy is also possible. People with aphantasia may also lean more on word associations.