The conceptual groundwork: what aphantasia actually is, how it's been defined, and where those definitions still get debated.
Dupont and colleagues · Brain Communications
Aphantasics showed no increase in motor system excitability during motor imagery or action observation tasks. This suggests aphantasia involves a physiological impairment in motor simulation rather than just a deficit in metacognition.
Monzel and Reuter · Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics
In an online test, people with aphantasia took longer than controls to find objects in busy hidden-object pictures (8.95 versus 7.46 seconds), though no one was asked to visualize. More vivid imagery went with faster search.
Dupont and colleagues · Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Aphantasics showed no increase in motor cortex excitability while reading action sentences, unlike those with typical imagery. This suggests that mental imagery is a necessary component for the motor simulation of language.
Cabbai and colleagues · Cortex
A dot matching the color of a searched-for object pulled attention as strongly in 91 people with aphantasia as in 231 without, and imagery vividness made no difference. None of the aphantasic group reported using imagery to search.
Dance, Hole and Simner · Cortex
Aphantasics performed worse on face recognition tasks but were just as accurate as controls at constructing face composites from memory. This suggests that while visual imagery facilitates face recognition, it is not required for accurate face recall.
Liu and Bartolomeo · Cortex
People with aphantasia were as accurate as typical and vivid imagers on imagery and perception tasks, but slower. The authors suggest visual knowledge is still reached without a conscious image, or through other strategies.
Monzel and colleagues · Perception
People with aphantasia performed worse than controls on both face and object recognition tasks. This suggests that a lack of mental imagery may lead to broader visual recognition deficits beyond just faces.
Muraki, Speed and Pexman · Nature Reviews Psychology
Aphantasia research reveals a dissociation between voluntary imagery and involuntary sensorimotor simulations. This suggests that conscious mental imagery may not be necessary for the simulations that support conceptual understanding.
Prasad, Megla and Bainbridge · Journal of Vision
Aphantasics show significant neural overlap with typical imagers during memory recall despite reporting no visual imagery. This suggests that aphantasia may involve a disruption in conscious access to visual information rather than a total absence of it.
Blomkvist · Mind & Language
Aphantasia results from a malfunction in the episodic retrieval process rather than a simple lack of mental imagery. This suggests aphantasia is an episodic system condition, explaining why it often involves impairments in memory and future prospection.
Palermo and colleagues · Consciousness and Cognition
Researchers identified distinct subtypes of object and spatial aphantasia, each linked to specific deficits in face recognition or navigation. This suggests that aphantasia is not a uniform condition but involves multiple neural pathways.
Furman and colleagues · Neurocase
An aphantasic subject successfully performed spatial tasks using non-visual strategies despite a total lack of mental imagery. This demonstrates that complex spatial reasoning can rely on semantic and kinesthetic pathways rather than a visual buffer.
Kay and colleagues · eLife
Individuals with aphantasia do not show the pupillary light response when attempting to imagine bright or dark objects. This provides an objective physiological marker confirming that aphantasia involves a genuine lack of visual sensory imagery.
Pounder and colleagues · Cortex
Twenty people with aphantasia were as accurate as 20 typical imagers on tests of memory, spatial span, planning and mental rotation. Differences appeared only in speed: they slowed more than controls as a planning puzzle got harder.
Fox-Muraton · Analiza i Egzystencja
In this philosophy essay, an author with aphantasia argues that people without imagery must use words for experiences they lack, so aphantasia is described only as a lack. She urges researchers to notice how their wording shapes answers.
Monzel, Keidel and Reuter · Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics
In an online task, people who reported aphantasia were slightly slower than others to pick out a pictured object they had been asked to imagine, but not a written word. The authors conclude imagery-guided attention is reduced in aphantasia.
Königsmark, Bergmann and Reeder · Cortex
People with aphantasia are significantly less likely to experience vivid or complex pseudo-hallucinations during rhythmic flicker stimulation. This suggests that the ability to generate voluntary mental imagery increases susceptibility to anomalous perceptual experiences.
Keogh, Pearson and Zeman · Handbook of Clinical Neurology
Researchers found that patient MX showed hypoactivation in visual regions and hyperactivation in the anterior cingulate while attempting to imagine faces. This suggests aphantasia may involve a functional dissociation between the desire to imagine and the neural machinery required to generate images.
Fox-Muraton · History of European Ideas
Aphantasia challenges existential models that view mental imagery as essential for selfhood and personal transformation. This suggests that a rich sense of self can exist through non-visual modes of relating to one's past and future.
Keogh and Pearson · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
In binocular rivalry tests, people with aphantasia were primed by attending to a visible striped pattern but showed no sign of attentional templates when it was absent. The authors conclude templates and imagery are closely linked.