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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Kutsche and colleagues · Cortex
Lesions causing aphantasia are all functionally connected to a specific region in the left ventral visual pathway called the fusiform imagery node. This provides causal evidence that this node's connections are key for voluntary visual imagery.
Kvamme and colleagues · Heliyon
In 591 young adults, more vivid imagery went with an inward-focused style: attention to body signals, mindfulness, and openness. In statistical models, imagery related to mental health only through this style, partly through lower alexithymia.
Bartolomeo · Neuropsychologia
In a short conceptual paper, the author proposes sorting aphantasia into at least three forms: neurological, psychogenic and congenital. He offers it as an initial taxonomy for research that has reached contradictory conclusions.
Kvamme, Sandberg and Silvanto · Neuropsychologia
In this short opinion piece, with no new data, the authors propose that vivid imagery belongs to a wider habit of paying attention to one's own inner life: body signals, emotions and thoughts. They link this habit to openness, conscientiousness and extraversion, and expect it to run opposite to difficulty recognizing and describing feelings. They leave open whether turning attention inward builds imagery or vivid imagery draws attention inward, and warn that vividness ratings may partly reflect personality and habits of description.
Cabbai and colleagues · Current Biology
In an fMRI study, the type of sound people with aphantasia heard could be decoded from their primary visual cortex, though they reported no imagery. A higher region, the precuneus, tracked whether imagery was experienced.
Hashim and colleagues · Music & Science
People with aphantasia felt slightly less intense emotion to film music and reported fewer music-evoked memories, yet enjoyed music as much as others. The authors suggest imagery may deepen musical emotion but is not needed to enjoy music.
Dance, Ward and Simner · Perception
Aphantasics reported significantly lower sensory sensitivity and multi-sensory imagery deficits compared to controls. This suggests aphantasia is a widespread multi-sensory condition rather than one limited to visual imagery.