Ella Rhodes, journalist for The Psychologist magazine, delves into the growing body of research exploring aphantasia – a condition she has personal experience of. While most people can see images formed in their minds people with aphantasia draw a blank, what might this mean for autobiographical memory, face perception and imagination?
Our guests, in order of appearance, are: Zoe Pounder at the University of Westminster and Professor Adam Zeman at the University of Exeter.
Background resources for this episode:
This man had no idea his mind is "blind" until last week.
Mental rotation performance in aphantasia.
Lives without imagery – Congenital aphantasia.
The neural correlates of visual imagery vividness – An fMRI study and literature review.
The neural correlates of visual imagery: A co-ordinate-based meta-analysis.
On Picturing a Candle: The Prehistory of Imagery Science.
The Eye’s Mind - Zeman’s apahantasia research project.
A scientific measure of our visual imagination suggests it is surprisingly limited
Episode credits: Presented and produced by Ella Rhodes. Mixing Jeff Knowler. Music Sincere Love by Monplaisir. PsychCrunch theme music Catherine Loveday and Jeff Knowler. Art work Tim Grimshaw.