Research library
Papers about aphantasia and mental imagery, with summaries in plain words. The summaries are generated by AI and may contain errors.
Wantzen and Witt · L’Année psychologique
Aphantasics reported less frequent use of autobiographical memory for identity and directive purposes than controls. This suggests that a lack of mental imagery may alter how individuals utilize their personal past to guide future behavior and self-concept.
Cavalli and Plancher · L’Année psychologique
Introducing a special issue, the editors call aphantasia multifaceted, with memory differences in some areas and preserved abilities in others. They suggest it invites cognitive science to build individual differences into models of the mind.
Guillaume and Armand · L’Année psychologique
A 51-year-old man with lifelong aphantasia, who reported no visual or auditory imagery, was compared with seven matched men on two recognition tests. He recognized word and picture pairs as well as they did when the two items were related in meaning, but almost never when they were unrelated, calling nearly every unrelated pair new whether or not he had seen it. He also recognized fewer of the studied faces that showed fear. The authors suggest his memory works when it can lean on meaning and fails when it needs visual reconstruction, and caution that this is a single case.
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