Episode 16: What’s it like to have no mind’s eye?
Most people can see images in their minds, but people with aphantasia draw a blank. What might this mean for autobiographical memory, face perception and imagination?
03 May 2019
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.
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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.
