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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Sulfaro · Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
Researchers discovered that aphantasia and vividness judgements are compromised by poorly defined references for typical imagery. This indicates that current measures like the VVIQ may be invalid and misleading.
Sulfaro, Robinson and Carlson · Consciousness and Cognition
Researchers found that auditory imagery has a shorter onset and longer duration than visual imagery, with distinct patterns of automaticity across modalities. This suggests that different sensory imageries rely on unique temporal and neural mechanisms rather than a single unified process.
Sulfaro, Robinson and Carlson · Neuroscience of Consciousness
Researchers found that sensory input competes with mental imagery in a hierarchical neural network, preventing thoughts from dominating low-level sensory regions. This explains why mental imagery feels less vivid than real perception and how aphantasia arises from overweighted bottom-up signals.
Sulfaro, Robinson and Carlson
Researchers found that competition from real-world sensory input prevents mental images from becoming fully visible hallucinations. This suggests that the "quasi-sensory" nature of imagery is a direct result of perceptual interference.