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.

Loss of imagery phenomenology with intact visuo-spatial task performance: a case of "blind imagination".

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.