Imageless Imagination

Written by: Rachel Teo

Imagine an elephant wearing a black top hat. For most, it is likely that an image similar to Figure 1 appears in their mental imagery. However, around 2% to 5% of people are unable to create a mental picture in their heads (Faw, 2009). This condition is known as Aphantasia. 

Figure 1: Elephant with a top hat

Aphantasia is the inability to visualise mental images voluntarily (Zeman et al, 2015). They are able to describe and explain the object but are unable to experience a mental image that depicts their knowledge.

History

The discovery of aphantasia started back in 1880, when Francis Galton conducted the Breakfast study where he asked participants to imagine their breakfast table and rate the illumination, definition, and colouring of the mental image (as cited from Aphantasia Network, 2018). From this study, Galton received varying responses regarding the vividness of mental imagery from the participants, with responses describing imagery with minute details to the absence of imagery, resulting in the discovery of individual differences with regards to mental imagery (Galton, 1880). However this phenomenon was not deeply researched until the 21st century, when Dr. Adam Zeman encountered Patient MX. Patient MX was referred to Dr. Zeman when MX reported losing his ability to visualise images after undergoing a surgery (as cited from Clemens, 2018). Fascinated by this, Zeman, Dewar and Della delved deep into this subject and published a paper in 2015, coming up with the term congenital aphantasia to describe blind imagination.  

Causes

The causes of congenital aphantasia is not exactly known however, there are some guesses that it might be genetics or a form of neurodiversity (Cleveland Clinic, 2023). Some cases of acquired aphantasia are due to damage to the brain by infection or injury. More research would be required before experts can determine the cause of aphantasia. 

Symptoms

If you struggled to picture the elephant with a top hat earlier, you may have aphantasia. Individuals who have difficulties remembering memories as pictures and unable to visualise events, faces and objects (Witynsk. If you are wondering whether you have aphantasia, you can try out the Vividness of Visual Imagery Quiz, created in 1973 by British Psychologist David Marks.

Life with Aphantasia

Despite the lack of ability to visualise images, individuals with aphantasia can still be imaginative as imagination is more than just the ability to visualise (Ebeyer, n.d.). This is evident as Glen Keane, the Disney animator behind the famous Disney classic, The Little Mermaid (1989), has aphantasia (MacKisack, 2021). However, due to this lack of ability, individuals with aphantasia have greater difficulty in recalling memories of past events (Zeman et al., 2020).

For many, visual imagery is innate and comes naturally. Due to the lack of objective measures, the existence of aphantasia is constantly questioned with some thinking that there is a possibility that aphantasics may just have a different way of describing their images compared to the vast majority (Clemens, 2018). Conversely, there are many who believe to have aphantasia have shared their personal stories about their experience.

What do you think? Do you think that aphantasia exists?

References

Aphantasia Network. (2018, September 1). Can we reliably evaluate the vividness of our mind’s eye? Aphantasia Network. https://aphantasia.com/article/science/vviq-aphantasia-test/ 

Cleveland Clinic. (2023, August 31). Aphantasia: Thinking that’s out of sight. Cleveland Clinic. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/25222-aphantasia 

Clemens, A. (2018, August 1). When the Mind’s Eye Is blind. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-the-minds-eye-is-blind1/  

Ebeyer, T. (n.d.). What is Aphantasia · Aphantasia Network. Aphantasia Network. https://aphantasia.com/what-is-aphantasia/  

Faw, B. (2009). Conflicting intuitions may be based on differing abilities: Evidence from mental imaging research. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 16(4), 45–68.

Galton, F. (1880). Statistics of mental imagery. Mind; a Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy, os-V(19), 301–318. doi:10.1093/mind/os-v.19.301  

MacKisack, M. (2021, June 22). The art of aphantasia. Aphantasia Network. https://aphantasia.com/article/strategies/the-art-of-aphantasia/  

Witynski, M. (2020, December 23). Can’t draw a mental picture? Aphantasia causes blind spots in the mind’s eye. University of Chicago News. https://news.uchicago.edu/story/cant-draw-mental-picture-aphantasia-causes-blind-spots-minds-eye#:~:text=Recognition%20is%20also%20not%20affected,recently%20as%20a%20psychological%20phenomenon. 

Zeman, A., Dewar, M., & Della Sala, S. (2015). Lives without imagery—Congenital aphantasia. Cortex: A Journal Devoted to the Study of the Nervous System and Behavior, 73, 378–380. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2015.05.019 

Zeman, A., Milton, F., Della Sala, S., Dewar, M., Frayling, T., Gaddum, J., Hattersley, A., Heuerman-Williamson, B., Jones, K., MacKisack, M., & Winlove, C. (2020). Phantasia-The psychological significance of lifelong visual imagery vividness extremes. Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 130, 426–440. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.04.003