Research library
Papers about aphantasia and mental imagery, with summaries in plain words. The summaries are generated by AI and may contain errors.
Kvamme and colleagues · NeuroImage
In about 550 adults scanned in Poland and Denmark, researchers compared brain wiring and resting brain activity with how vividly people rated their imagery. More vivid imagery went with tighter local connections around the left fusiform gyrus, a high-level visual area, in resting activity; with more tightly clustered wiring in visual cortex; and with better-connected wiring of the right insula. Each link was small: together they accounted for about 3% of the differences between people.
Schmidt, Ostwald and Blankenburg · NeuroImage
In a brain scanning study of 14 adults, imagining a learned vibration pattern on the fingertip activated the touch area of the brain that responds to feeling it, though the overlap with real touch was clear only at a lenient threshold. Imagining also engaged regions tied to memory and imagination, and a frontal region became more strongly coupled with the touch area. The authors read this as the brain building an abstract image and then adding sensory detail from early sensory areas.
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Kobayashi and colleagues · NeuroImage
In a brain scanning study of 25 young adults, tasting fruit juice and imagining tastes both activated part of the insula, the brain's main taste area. Imagined taste activity sat mostly on the left side, while real taste activated both sides. Frontal areas appeared active whether people imagined tastes or pictured foods, so the authors suggest these areas start imagery in any sense. People who rated their taste imagery as weak were left out of the analysis.