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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Takamura and colleagues · Cortex
Aphantasic individuals showed eye movement patterns similar to visualizers when exploring mental maps despite reporting no subjective imagery. This suggests aphantasia may reflect reduced metacognitive access to imagery rather than a total absence of representational content.
Bartolomeo, Liu and Spagna · Neuropsychologia
The Fusiform Imagery Node (FIN) in the left hemisphere is a key hub for generating mental images across different domains. This suggests that aphantasia may result from impaired communication between the FIN and the prefrontal cortex.
Liu and colleagues · Cortex
In a 7-tesla brain imaging study of 10 people with aphantasia and 10 typical imagers, attempted imagery activated similar visual areas in both groups. In aphantasia, a key imagery region was less connected with frontal and parietal areas.
Spagna and colleagues · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
Researchers found that visual mental imagery relies on a core network in the left fusiform gyrus and fronto-parietal regions rather than early visual cortex. This suggests imagery is a top-down process initiated by prefrontal and semantic systems.