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
By PsychCrunch
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.
