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Aphantasia (Lack Of Mental Imagery; 'Mind Blindness')

catseye said:
I do not have aphantasia - I'm an author who 'runs the film' inside the mind and just writes down what happens.

But I do have the tendency to 'imagine' in reverse. For example, in Harry Potter (which I run as audio books to help me sleep, thank you, Stephen Fry), it is repeatedly stated that the dining room is on the right hand side of the entrance hall. I literally CANNOT envisage this. It is to the left. And I cannot relocate it however hard I try.

Also, I was asked to draw the inside of a building when writing with a co writer (we had to get the specifics of movement right for a TV thing). When we compared our drawings, mine was almost the mirror image of hers. And this happens all the time.

Is there a term for this?
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Looking-glass syndrome?
 
Mythopoeika said:
Looking-glass syndrome?
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I looked it up... seems unlikely, I've been doing the same thing all my life, and can easily distinguish objects in mirrors etc. It seems that it only works inside my head. For example, if I were to read a passage in a story to you, say, a man up a ladder painting a house, and we both went away and drew that scene, I can almost guarantee that (my truly stupendously awful drawing allowing), I would have drawn the man the opposite way round to you, even if the scene stipulated which side of the window he stood and which hand he used to paint with.

It's as though my 'inner eye' reverses things.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Looking-glass syndrome?
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I don't think so ... That label is used for multiple visual / cognitive disorders (that aren't necessarily identical), but to the best of my knowledge all of them involve a neglect or misinterpretation of visual stimuli from one side / hemisphere versus the other. I don't think I've ever heard of the label being used to mean left-right reversal of an 'accurate' / 'accessible' input from both sides.

There's a neurological condition called reversal of vision metamorphopsia (RVM) (distorted visual perception, specifically reversed 'received' images), but this is usually manifested in the coronal plane (yielding upside-down images). Left-right reversal would be in the sagittal plane. RVM in the sagittal plane is even more rare.

In any case, RVM is a visual perception disorder, and catseye's description sounds more like a cognitive bias. In the second example, which involves drawing the imagined scene, it might be something linked to handedness. Artists typically exhibit a bias (e.g., in effort or accuracy) in drawing faces' horizontal orientation that correlates with their dominant hand.
 
catseye said:
It may or may not be relevant but I am right handed but with a very weak preference and can't tell my left from right without stopping for a good think about it.
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That may be a key clue ... If there's a weak left / right preference in hand / eye coordination, it might be reflected in a loose 'internal orientation' to left / right orientation in 'the mind's eye'.

You mentioned that you tend to horizontally reverse images manifest solely in imagination (e.g., fictional scenes). Do you tend to reverse 'real' scenes that you're accessing solely from memory? In other words, do you reverse both scenes that are wholly imagined and scenes that you've actually seen (and for which there's been a definite specimen)?
 
catseye said:
It may or may not be relevant but I am right handed but with a very weak preference
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What about visual narrative continuity, either in terms of deducing an artist's intended delineation of a 2-D subject, or levels of implicit understanding whilst watching conventional (again, with western left-to-right arcs of intent) moving imagery, especially in a produced/presented sense film/video medium, but also live 'through-glass' isolated-but-adduced envisionment (eg if sitting in a cafe window, watching the world unfolding in front of you).

Do you feel comfortable/confident in predicting/absorbing such visual content? I appreciate an objective report may be difficult to generate, but even a biased personal insight could be informative.

There was a fascinating presentation on this a few years ago on Youtube, about how there is a continuum of cognative processing styles possessed across humanity: when you and I watch an animated sequence, we will never quite invest/accept precisely the same causal/processional analysis upon a shared experiential exposure. The author 'played' with visual representation of apparent sequence and direction so as to show how important differentials and inversions of meaning could be subtly generated in an (individually) inescapable mutation of meaning.
 
I have an appalling grasp of 3D geometry. My drawing skills are laughable, But my memory for actions seems (now I think about it) to rarely get reversed (ie, I can remember scenes that are verified as being 'as they were' by photographs'). So it does only appear to be fictional or imaginary scenes that come at me 'the wrong way round'.

I did once lose my car because I was trying to get to it up a road that didn't exist (in a very small town I'd known well for 20 years), but I was under a LOT of stress at the time. Otherwise my real world geography seems to be okay too.
 
There's a great episode of the always-brilliant podcast "Beautiful Calls from Anonymous People" (aka Beautiful/Anonymous) that has an hour long conversation with a caller who has this condition. Well worth a listen.

 
catseye said:
I have an appalling grasp of 3D geometry. My drawing skills are laughable, But my memory for actions seems (now I think about it) to rarely get reversed (ie, I can remember scenes that are verified as being 'as they were' by photographs'). So it does only appear to be fictional or imaginary scenes that come at me 'the wrong way round'.

I did once lose my car because I was trying to get to it up a road that didn't exist (in a very small town I'd known well for 20 years), but I was under a LOT of stress at the time. Otherwise my real world geography seems to be okay too.
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Thanks for the clarification / confirmation. A difference in spatial orientation / processing between imagined and known / remembered scenes was the distinction I suspected from your comments.
 
I wondered if anybody here thinks they have aphantasia - where you can't visualise things in your mind's eye. I have recently discovered that I seem to have it as well as other (possibly associated) disorders such as dyslexia and visual snow. I read it was one of those things possibly associated with ASD.
 
No, I can do it, but not particularly well. Unless it's rotating items to solve problems - when I'm brilliant :rollingw:

I know lots of people who do have it though.
 
OrsonSwells said:
I wondered if anybody here thinks they have aphantasia - where you can't visualise things in your mind's eye. I have recently discovered that I seem to have it as well as other (possibly associated) disorders such as dyslexia and visual snow. I read it was one of those things possibly associated with ASD.
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I have aphantasia; my current diagnosed condition is OCD, but OCD and Asperger's have an awful lot of similarities, and quite few people think I've probably got both or been misdiagnosed.
 
Aphantasia is very interesting to me; I spend a lot of time trying to visualize things in my head, including rotating the human figure around in space. It is not easy, and when my mind wanders I have to force it back repeatedly, but it is enjoyable somehow. In some practices of Tibetan Buddhism extreme visualization techniques are taught in conjunction used in various forms of meditation / magical practices.
I wonder what the interior life of a person with aphantasia is like as far as cognition and memory go.. Apparently folks with it still have involuntary dream imagery, so it is associated with consciously attempting to visualize?
 
feinman said:
Apparently folks with it still have involuntary dream imagery, so it is associated with consciously attempting to visualize?
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That's how I experience it. I can't consciously visualise anything. I've tried the red star test and can only see a very dim outline at best. Apparently most people can fully imagine/see a red star - which amazes me!

I do get hypnagogic dream imagery before sleeping. I also have very vivid dreams and my memory of events is very visual too - I just can't picture it.
 
OrsonSwells said:
That's how I experience it. I can't consciously visualise anything. I've tried the red star test and can only see a very dim outline at best. Apparently most people can fully imagine/see a red star - which amazes me!

I do get hypnagogic dream imagery before sleeping. I also have very vivid dreams and my memory of events is very visual too - I just can't picture it.
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Very interesting! You have very good visual recall. The mind is an amazing thing.
 
I've had a very few hypnagogic visions, and I dream in full colour (and sometimes taste and smell). I can also recall visually very well, and I'm an artist, so I can 'see' things, I just can't actually see them; on the red star thing, I'm between 1 and 2, but with more colour, the redness would be more apparent to me than the shape, but would only ever be a slightly reddish black.

I honestly thought people 'seeing things in their mind' was a metaphor until a few years ago, it blew me away to find out how many people could do it!
 
Fluttermoth said:
on the red star thing, I'm between 1 and 2, but with more colour, the redness would be more apparent to me than the shape, but would only ever be a slightly reddish black.
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I'm more of a 1 with no colour whatsoever.

Fluttermoth said:
I honestly thought people 'seeing things in their mind' was a metaphor until a few years ago, it blew me away to find out how many people could do it!
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Yes, I was like that. I thought the same until very recently. I'm still staggered by it!
 
Fluttermoth said:
I honestly thought people 'seeing things in their mind' was a metaphor until a few years ago, it blew me away to find out how many people could do it!
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OrsonSwells said:
Yes, I was like that. I thought the same until very recently. I'm still staggered by it!
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YES!!!!!!!! so many things like this! Part of the joy for me is, for example, understanding why my experience is X and then finding out that X is also experienced by others. The moment when the abyss opens up and you get the most people don't have this can be exhilarating or terrifying, depending upon the individual. The relief and fellow feeling when you meet others is pure dead brilliant!
 
Coincidentally, I've just taken part in an aphantasia study as part of the control group. I was asked to identify whether two faces shown at short time intervals were the same or not. I get occasional invites to stuff like this after volunteering for the Exeter 10,000 study.
 
Newly reported research describes the first alleged benefit for aphantasia - a resistance to becoming frightened when reading about fearful situations or scenarios.
I ain't afraid of no ghosts: People with mind-blindness not so easily spooked

People with aphantasia -- that is, the inability to visualise mental images -- are harder to spook with scary stories, a new UNSW Sydney study shows.

The study, published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, tested how aphantasic people reacted to reading distressing scenarios, like being chased by a shark, falling off a cliff, or being in a plane that's about to crash.

The researchers were able to physically measure each participant's fear response by monitoring changing skin conductivity levels -- in other words, how much the story made a person sweat. This type of test is commonly used in psychology research to measure the body's physical expression of emotion.

According to the findings, scary stories lost their fear factor when the readers couldn't visually imagine the scene -- suggesting imagery may have a closer link to emotions than scientists previously thought.

"We found the strongest evidence yet that mental imagery plays a key role in linking thoughts and emotions," says Professor Joel Pearson, senior author on the paper and Director of UNSW Science's Future Minds Lab.

"In all of our research to date, this is by far the biggest difference we've found between people with aphantasia and the general population." ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210310122434.htm
 
Here are the bibliographic details and abstract for the published research ...

Marcus Wicken, Rebecca Keogh, Joel Pearson.
The critical role of mental imagery in human emotion: insights from fear-based imagery and aphantasia.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2021; 288 (1946): 20210267
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2021.0267
Abstract

One proposed function of imagery is to make thoughts more emotionally evocative through sensory simulation, which can be helpful both in planning for future events and in remembering the past, but also a hindrance when thoughts become overwhelming and maladaptive, such as in anxiety disorders. Here, we report a novel test of this theory using a special population with no visual imagery: aphantasia. After using multi-method verification of aphantasia, we show that this condition, but not the general population, is associated with a flat-line physiological response (skin conductance levels) to reading and imagining frightening stories. Importantly, we show in a second experiment that this difference in physiological responses to fear-inducing stimuli is not found when perceptually viewing fearful images. These data demonstrate that the aphantasic individuals' lack of a physiological response when imaging scenarios is likely to be driven by their inability to visualize and is not due to a general emotional or physiological dampening. This work provides evidence that a lack of visual imagery results in a dampened emotional response when reading fearful scenarios, providing evidence for the emotional amplification theory of visual imagery.
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SOURCE: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2021.0267
 
This Australian study discovered an interesting observable difference between eye behavior between "normal" subjects and subjects self-reported as having aphantasia. The results suggest such eye behavior might be used as a diagnostic test for the condition.
The Eyes Can Reveal if Someone Has Aphantasia – An Absence of Visuals in Their Mind
CONOR FEEHLY 25 APRIL 2022

Aphantasia is the strange condition where some people are unable to visualize images in their mind. For a long time, aphantasia could only be identified thanks to people's self-reported experiences. Now, we may finally have a way to detect it in a different way.

In this case, the eyes have it. More specifically, in a new study aphantasia could be detected based on pupil dilation response. When the human eye is exposed to bright light, our pupils contract, and when they are exposed to darkness they expand so as to let more light into the retina; however, it's also known our pupils can change size due to cognitive tasks.

Researchers in Australia tested two groups of participants; 42 in one group with self-reported regular visual imagination skills, and another group of 18 individuals with self-reported aphantasia were asked to view images with light and dark shapes on a gray background.

Individuals from both groups showed regular pupil dilation responses to both the light and dark images.

But then the researchers asked both groups to imagine the same images with their eyes open. Curiously, they found that the pupils of individuals with regular visual imagination would still contract and expand, while the pupils of individuals with aphantasia didn't change size to a significant level.

"Our results provide novel evidence that our pupils respond to the vividness and strength of a visual image being held in mind, the stronger and more vivid that image, the greater the pupillary light response," state the authors of the paper.

"Finally, we show that, as a group, there is no evidence of this pupil response in individuals without mental imagery (aphantasia)," they add.

Because the pupil's response to light is involuntary, the study offers a new unbiased measure of aphantasia, since this technique does not rely on self-report. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/the-ey...phantasia-an-absence-of-visuals-in-their-mind
 
Here are the bibliographic details and abstract for the published research report. The full report is accessible at the link below.

The pupillary light response as a physiological index of aphantasia, sensory and phenomenological imagery strength
Lachlan Kay, Rebecca Keogh, Thomas Andrillon, Joel Pearson
eLife 2022;11:e72484
DOI: 10.7554/eLife.72484

Abstract
The pupillary light response is an important automatic physiological response which optimizes light reaching the retina. Recent work has shown that the pupil also adjusts in response to illusory brightness and a range of cognitive functions, however, it remains unclear what exactly drives these endogenous changes. Here, we show that the imagery pupillary light response correlates with objective measures of sensory imagery strength. Further, the trial-by-trial phenomenological vividness of visual imagery is tracked by the imagery pupillary light response. We also demonstrated that a group of individuals without visual imagery (aphantasia) do not show any significant evidence of an imagery pupillary light response, however they do show perceptual pupil light responses and pupil dilation with larger cognitive load. Our results provide evidence that the pupillary light response indexes the sensory strength of visual imagery. This work also provides the first physiological validation of aphantasia.

SOURCE / FULL ARTICLE: https://elifesciences.org/articles/72484
 
I find this whole subject fascinating. Not least is the fact that people can have had this condition all their lives and not realised that they were 'seeing' things differently to others.
My 'reversed imagary' came screaming to the fore the other day when I was listening (again) to one of the Harry Potter books, where the book described everyone going in through the main doors and turning right to the Great Hall. Despite KNOWING that they turned right - the Great Hall in my mind, is on the left. Every time.
 
catseye said:
I find this whole subject fascinating. Not least is the fact that people can have had this condition all their lives and not realised that they were 'seeing' things differently to others.
My 'reversed imagary' came screaming to the fore the other day when I was listening (again) to one of the Harry Potter books, where the book described everyone going in through the main doors and turning right to the Great Hall. Despite KNOWING that they turned right - the Great Hall in my mind, is on the left. Every time.
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I sometimes experience this reversed imagery, and I, too, am dyslexic. Left and right are things I have to think about to get correct. I can orient much better outdoors, but am "blind" in buildings, and have very poor spatial memory in buildings. I vaguely think all these spatial effects are all related to the same brain, cognitive, or sensory defect. They are all much worse when I am tired or stressed.

A few times, when I noticed that my reversed imagery was in play when reading a description of something, I tried to force myself to visualize the correct imagery, even going as far as sketching it out with paper and pencil. The new, correct imagery only stuck while I was sketching, and then for a few minutes afterward. I could almost feel it in my brain when my internal imagery re-asserted itself, which it always did. It always felt better - familiar - after the reversed imagery re-asserted itself.
 
Endlessly Amazed said:
I sometimes experience this reversed imagery, and I, too, am dyslexic. Left and right are things I have to think about to get correct. I can orient much better outdoors, but am "blind" in buildings, and have very poor spatial memory in buildings. I vaguely think all these spatial effects are all related to the same brain, cognitive, or sensory defect. They are all much worse when I am tired or stressed.

A few times, when I noticed that my reversed imagery was in play when reading a description of something, I tried to force myself to visualize the correct imagery, even going as far as sketching it out with paper and pencil. The new, correct imagery only stuck while I was sketching, and then for a few minutes afterward. I could almost feel it in my brain when my internal imagery re-asserted itself, which it always did. It always felt better - familiar - after the reversed imagery re-asserted itself.
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Weirdly, I am not dyslexic, even slightly. I have ADD and possibly dyspraxia - and I think it's the dyspraxia which causes the 'reversing' effect. It doesn't affect me generally in day to day life at all, but I know what you mean about things feeling ;famiiar; when you're allowed your own mental image. I don't reverse things in memory, just in imagination.

The brain is a very strange place.
 
catseye, endlessly amazed- your posts have made my day, knowing I am not the only one out there .I too have problems with left and right when trying to visualise narrative etc. I cannot easily distinguish directions when asked to. I cannot give directions verbally but can usually manage to write them down with drawings.

I have been known to get lost in modern buildings , carparks etc.

identified as Dyslexic in my 30s,
 
Eyespy said:
catseye, endlessly amazed- your posts have made my day, knowing I am not the only one out there .I too have problems with left and right when trying to visualise narrative etc. I cannot easily distinguish directions when asked to. I cannot give directions verbally but can usually manage to write them down with drawings.

I have been known to get lost in modern buildings , carparks etc.

identified as Dyslexic in my 30s,
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Welcome to the very highly select club! We insiders know we are smarter and more determined because it takes so much more effort and vigilance to get through some days. Bask in the warmth of envy from all those poor normal others who drift through their days, sadly unchallenged.... :)
 
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