The blind mind: No sensory visual imagery in aphantasia

2017/10/28 by Rebecca Keogh, Joel Pearson · 358 citations
Neuroscience · Psychology · #Categorization, perception, and language #Cognition #Cognitive psychology #Cognitive science #Mental image #Multisensory perception and integration #Neuroscience #Psychology #Sensory system #Visual perception and processing mechanisms

paper · doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2017.10.012

published in Cortex 105, 53-60 (Elsevier BV)

openalex publication_date 2017/10/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Citations

• Lives without imagery – Congenital aphantasia

Cited by

• Probing the unimaginable: The impact of aphantasia on distinct domains of visual mental imagery and visual perception
• Phantasia–The psychological significance of lifelong visual imagery vividness extremes
• Quantifying aphantasia through drawing: Those without visual imagery show deficits in object but not spatial memory
• Defining and ‘diagnosing’ aphantasia: Condition or individual difference?
• Sensory representations in primary visual cortex are not sufficient for subjective imagery
• Imagery priming of binocular rivalry is not a reliable metric of individual differences in the subjective vividness of visualisations
• Vividness of mental imagery reflects a broad range of internally generated visual experiences
• Transcranial Focused Ultrasound for Identifying the Neural Substrate of Conscious Perception
• Mental image vividness and aphantasia judgements are fundamentally compromised by overlooked definition problems
• Simulation in the ‘Blind’ mind: Examining unconscious mental imagery in aphantasia
• Thinking differently: neurodivergent traits and responses to thought experiments in philosophers and the general population
• Aphantasia and involuntary imagery
• Multimodal mental imagery profiles and the prevalence of aphantasia and hyperphantasia in the general population
• Virtual empowerment: manipulating height in virtual reality affects self-related cognitions and personal speech performance evaluation
• Slower but more accurate mental rotation performance in aphantasia linked to differences in cognitive strategies
• What is the true range of mental imagery?
• Visual mental imagery in typical imagers and in aphantasia: A millimeter-scale 7-T fMRI study
• Aphantasia and hyperphantasia: exploring imagery vividness extremes
• Metacognitive Awareness and the Subjective Experience of Remembering in Aphantasia
• What is the Link Between Mental Imagery and Sensory Sensitivity? Insights from Aphantasia
• Virtual-reality induced nostalgia: Duration and psychological benefits
• Hippocampal-occipital connectivity reflects autobiographical memory deficits in aphantasia
• Objective priming from pre-imagining inputs before binocular rivalry presentations does not predict individual differences in the subjective intensity of imagined experiences
• Aphantasia: a philosophical approach
• Mnemonic scaffolds vary in effectiveness for serial recall
• The brain as image processor and generator
• The dynamic contribution of the high-level visual cortex to imagery and perception. [europepmc]
• Towards a comparative science of emotion: Affect and consciousness in humans and animals. [europepmc]
• Cortical excitability controls the strength of mental imagery. [europepmc]
• Anomalous visual experience is linked to perceptual uncertainty and visual imagery vividness. [europepmc]
• A cognitive profile of multi-sensory imagery, memory and dreaming in aphantasia. [europepmc]
• Why do imagery and perception look and feel so different? [europepmc]
• Attention driven phantom vision: measuring the sensory strength of attentional templates and their relation to visual mental imagery and aphantasia. [europepmc]
• Unconscious mental imagery. [europepmc]
• Quantifying aphantasia through drawing: Those without visual imagery show deficits in object but not spatial memory. [europepmc]
• The critical role of mental imagery in human emotion: insights from fear-based imagery and aphantasia. [europepmc]
• Imagine, and you will find - Lack of attentional guidance through visual imagery in aphantasics. [europepmc]
• Behavioral and Neural Signatures of Visual Imagery Vividness Extremes: Aphantasia versus Hyperphantasia. [europepmc]
• A tutorial on capturing mental representations through drawing and crowd-sourced scoring. [europepmc]
• What is the Link Between Mental Imagery and Sensory Sensitivity? Insights from Aphantasia. [europepmc]
• Anauralia: The Silent Mind and Its Association With Aphantasia. [europepmc]
• The pupillary light response as a physiological index of aphantasia, sensory and phenomenological imagery strength. [europepmc]
• Aphantasia and psychological disorder: Current connections, defining the imagery deficit and future directions. [europepmc]
• Where's Wanda? The influence of visual imagery vividness on visual search speed measured by means of hidden object pictures. [europepmc]
• Effect of frequency and rhythmicity on flicker light-induced hallucinatory phenomena. [europepmc]
• Measuring imagery strength in schizophrenia: no evidence of enhanced mental imagery priming. [europepmc]
• Diversity of aphantasia revealed by multiple assessments of visual imagery, multisensory imagery, and cognitive style. [europepmc]
• Real-world implications of aphantasia: episodic recall of eyewitnesses with aphantasia is less complete but no less accurate than typical imagers. [europepmc]
• Working memory signals in early visual cortex are present in weak and strong imagers. [europepmc]
• Drawing as a versatile cognitive tool. [europepmc]
• Hippocampal-occipital connectivity reflects autobiographical memory deficits in aphantasia. [europepmc]