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aphantasia

·June 9, 2025·6 min read

Aphantasia: Why Some Minds Are Blind to Images

Scientists have uncovered how the brains of people with aphantasia, those who cannot visualize mental images, process visual information differently. Although key visual and memory-related brain regions still activate during mental imagery tasks, they show weaker connectivity compared to individuals with typical visualization.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·December 15, 2024·6 min read

Visual Silence: Exploring Aphantasia

A new study reveals that aphantasics, people unable to visualize, are more resistant to involuntary visual thoughts, such as imagining a pink elephant. While vivid visual imaginations often lead to intrusive imagery, aphantasics seem to redirect their thoughts to other mental processes, like abstract ideas or auditory daydreaming.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·March 27, 2024·6 min read

Exploring Aphantasia: The Mind Without a Mental Picture

Researchers reviewed 50 studies to deepen our understanding aphantasia, a phenomenon where individuals can't visualize mentally. The research reveals aphantasia's diverse impact, from reduced autobiographical memory and face recognition to broader implications in music imagination and occupation choices, suggesting a spectrum rather than a binary condition.

Featured Neuroscience

·February 27, 2024·5 min read

Aphantasia Impacts Autobiographical Memory Recall

Individuals with aphantasia, a condition where people cannot visualize images in their mind, struggle more with recalling personal memories due to differences in their hippocampus and occipital lobe. This groundbreaking study, involving participants with and without aphantasia, utilized questionnaires, interviews, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore the connection between visual imagination and memory recall.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·September 8, 2023·6 min read

Unlocking Aphantasia – The Mysterious Spectrum of Mind’s Visualization

Visualization abilities range from hyperphantasia, where individuals can create vivid mental images, to aphantasia, where people experience a complete absence of visual imagery. A study assessed the link between perception and mental imagery in individuals across this spectrum.

Featured Neuroscience

·March 3, 2023·5 min read

Imagination Is a Spectrum, and 1% Of People Can’t Mentally Visualize Things at All

1% of the population experience aphantasia, or mind-blindness, which is an inability to visualize concepts or thoughts in their imagination. Researchers investigate this phenomenon and offer explanations as to how this may occur.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Visual Neuroscience

·April 20, 2022·6 min read

Windows to the Soul: Pupils Reveal ‘Aphantasia’ – The Absence of Visual Imagination

People who experience visual imagination have pupillary responses that optimize the amount of light hitting the retina and change in response to imagined items. This pupillary response does not occur in those with aphantasia.

This is a drawing of a head with a spider crawling on it

Featured Neuroscience Psychology Visual Neuroscience

·October 29, 2021·5 min read

Not Spooked by Halloween Ghost Stories? You May Have Aphantasia

Do you experience difficulties conjuring up visual images in your mind while listening to spooky stories? You may have aphantasia, researchers report.

This shows a girl standing on a dock at night looking at an oversized moon

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·June 26, 2021·4 min read

Pseudo-Hallucinations: Why Some People See More Vivid Mental Images Than Others – Test Yourself Here

Study reveals people who experience intense visual imagery during a Ganzflicker test have naturally lower frequency rhythms in the visual cortex, making them more susceptible to pseudo-hallucinations.

This shows a woman with swirling colors on her head

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·June 13, 2021·4 min read

Aphantasia Explained: Some People Can’t Form Mental Pictures

Aphantasia is marked by the inability to generate visual images in the mind's eye. Researchers explore the neurobiological basis for the disorder.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Visual Neuroscience

·June 9, 2021·3 min read

Brain Connections Mean Some People Lack Visual Imagery

People with hyperphantasia, the ability to visualize vividly, have stronger connections between their visual brain network and decision-making networks. By contrast, those with aphantasia, an inability to visualize, have weaker connections between the brain regions.

This shows models of halloween skeletons lit up with neon lights

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·March 10, 2021·6 min read

I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts: People With Mind-Blindness Not So Easily Spooked

Horror writers may have a hard time attracting those with aphantasia to read their spooky stories. A new study reveals those with aphantasia, a disorder marked by an inability to visualize mental imagery, have a hard time getting spooked by creepy stories. Findings suggest mental imagery may have a closer link to emotional processing and expression than previously believed.

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aphantasia

Aphantasia: Why Some Minds Are Blind to Images

Visual Silence: Exploring Aphantasia

Exploring Aphantasia: The Mind Without a Mental Picture

Aphantasia Impacts Autobiographical Memory Recall

Unlocking Aphantasia – The Mysterious Spectrum of Mind’s Visualization

Imagination Is a Spectrum, and 1% Of People Can’t Mentally Visualize Things at All

Windows to the Soul: Pupils Reveal ‘Aphantasia’ – The Absence of Visual Imagination

Not Spooked by Halloween Ghost Stories? You May Have Aphantasia

Pseudo-Hallucinations: Why Some People See More Vivid Mental Images Than Others – Test Yourself Here

Aphantasia Explained: Some People Can’t Form Mental Pictures

Brain Connections Mean Some People Lack Visual Imagery

I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts: People With Mind-Blindness Not So Easily Spooked

Left-Handed Creativity Myth Debunked

Tiny RNA Mark Helps Explain Brain Wiring and Mental Disorders

Brain Tracks Emotional Transitions Through Music

People Prefer Human Empathy, Even When AI Says the Same Thing

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