Aphantasia

Aphantasia refers to the absence of internal sense perceptions when remembering or imagining. It means knowing that you just ate a delicious chocolate cake, but not being able to re-experience its taste in your mind. People with visual aphantasia don't generate an image in their mind’s eye when hearing words like “apple” or “tree” or “dog.”The brain’s image-processing and memory systems are involved in a range of conscious and unconscious experiences. Aphantasia is associated with a range of consequences, including impaired autobiographical memory and, potentially, less emotional awareness and empathy. It's an under-recognized aspect of neurodiversity.Steve explores this experience and reflects on the uncanny fact that other peoples’ consciousnesses can work differently than our own, in more or less subtle ways with far-reaching effects.TranscriptSelected ResearchBeran, Michael J. et al (2023). Assessing aphantasia prevalence and the relation of self-reported imagery abilities and memory task performance. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2023.103548.Blomkvist, A. (2023) Aphantasia: in search of a theory. https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12432Blomkvist A, Marks DF. Defining and ‘diagnosing’ aphantasia: Condition or individual difference?https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2023.09.004Delem et al. Complete Aphantasics Process Emotions Differently, But No Less Efficiently: Evidence of a Non-linear Relationship Between Visual Imagery and Alexithymia. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/es425_v1McCormick C and Lange S (2025) Missing images: autobiographical memory in Aphantasia and blindness. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcogn.2025.1644533Monzel M, et al. Aphantasia within the framework of neurodivergence. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2023.103567Monzel M, et al. Affective processing in aphantasia and potential overlaps with alexithymia. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bionps.2024.100106.Wicken M, et al. The critical role of mental imagery in human emotion. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.0267Zeman, Adam. Aphantasia and hyperphantasia: exploring imagery vividness extremes. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2024.02.007The music is “Dirt Rhodes" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com).The cover art features “Concentric squares forming a geometric maze pattern” by Cansu Sarp.