Lives without imagery – Congenital aphantasia

Zeman, Adam; Dewar, Michaela; Sala, Sergio Della

doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2015.05.019

Cited by 352 publications

(410 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

381

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…However, Galton's finding that some scientists had extremely limited or zero imagery raises questions about the influence this other pole has had on the evolution of science and mathematics which I think should be revisited in the light of the new evidence from Zeman et al (2015) about aphantasia. I have recounted my own experience of becoming aware of my aphantasia and a concomitant memory issue, SDAM, and the work of Palombo et al (2015) in providing objective evidence of the latter.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…His surveys of a total of 2500 people are the source for his widely quoted (e.g. Zeman et al, 2015) but provisional estimate that as many as 2% of the population may be aphantasic, a finding similar to that of Betts (1909 The next key step was finding Oliver Sacks' account (Sacks, 2007) of how taking amphetamines in the 1960s had temporarily changed the nature and extent of his own very weak voluntary imaging abilities.…”

Section: T Learn Much Algebra I Just Learnt How Better To Think In Pmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The publication in early 2015 of the Rotman study was a personal milestone for me, but only a few months later it was followed by a complete surprise-the Zeman et al (2015) paper on Aphantasia in this journal (although I had seen their Zeman et al (2010) study I had never got in contact). One immediate result has been a great increase in the amount of personal testimony on the web about lifetime imagery deficits, from people who recognise aspects of their own experience.…”

Section: "I … Could Hold Very Accurate and Stable Visual Images In Mymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Something, therefore, should be known respecting the linguistic memory also, without which no statement of the intellectual peculiarity of the individual is complete". Indeed, Paivio's celebrated Dual Coding Theory (Paivio, 1971;1990; The new findings of Zeman et al (2015), taking up the enquiry started by Galton, are already giving rise to developments in many directions. I would like to propose that one avenue should be to ask how the wide spectrum of mental imagery among scientists may have affected the evolution of science itself, informed by the growing awareness that imagery can be low or absent as well as strong.…”

Section: T Learn Much Algebra I Just Learnt How Better To Think In Pmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

(A)phantasia and SDAM: Scientific and Personal Perspectives

Watkins¹

2017

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

I address two interlinked aspects of the diversity in our experiences of memory and the mind's eye. I summarise the long-appreciated role of imagery in mathematics and the physical sciences, and contrast it with the evidence that some scientists have had limited or zero imagery. I then recount the story of how I became aware of my own lack of mental imagery, and the accompanying deficit in my episodic memory, how I have sought scientific understanding of these conditions, and how they have affected my life.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: T Learn Much Algebra I Just Learnt How Better To Think In Pmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: "I … Could Hold Very Accurate and Stable Visual Images In Mymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: T Learn Much Algebra I Just Learnt How Better To Think In Pmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

(A)phantasia and SDAM: Scientific and Personal Perspectives

Watkins¹

2017

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Recent studies about the inability to produce mental imagery suggest that different kinds of cognitive strategies (for example, through imagery or through language) might be available to participants in imaging tasks (Zeman et al 2010;Zeman et al 2015). The theory of the availability of different strategies to perform cognitive tasks is not new.…”

Section: Mental Imagery In the Cognitive Sciencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mental Imagery in Translation Processes

León

2017

HJLCB

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The use of mental imagery has been claimed in Translation and Interpreting Studies to help students to understand source texts as well as to avoid interferences. The role played by mental images in translation and interpreting has, however, been scarcely investigated. This study explores the use of mental images by translation students, drawing on embodied approaches to language comprehension -in particular, on the Language and Situated Simulation (LASS) theory. Five translation students translated three texts with different contents (respectively focusing on objects, on spatial relations and on abstract concepts). Four kinds of data were collected: (1) a self-report questionnaire about individual preferences in the use of mental imagery; (2) key-logged translation processes; (3) finished translations, and (4) self-reports about mental imaging during the translation processes. The results suggest that there are individual differences in the use of mental images in translation and that the participants' individual imaging profiles, as assessed by the self-report Object-Spatial Imagery and Verbal Questionnaire (OSIVQ), may help to explain these differences.

show abstract

Effective connectivity during autobiographical memory search

Nawa

Ando

2020

Brain and Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Introduction We used dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to examine effective connectivity during cued autobiographical memory (AM) search in a left‐hemispheric network consisting of six major regions within the large network of brain regions recruited during memory retrieval processes. Methods Functional MRI data were acquired while participants were shown verbal cues describing common life events and requested to search for a personal memory associated with the cue. We examined directed couplings between the ventromedial (vmPFC), dorsomedial (dmPFC), and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices (dlPFC), hippocampus, angular gyrus, and the posterior midline cortex (RSC/PCC/Prec). Results During AM search, the vmPFC, dlPFC, and RSC/PCC/Prec acted as primary drivers of activity in the rest of the network. Moreover, when AM search completed successfully (Hits), the effective connectivity of the hippocampus on the vmPFC and angular gyrus was up‐modulated. Likewise, there was an increase in the influence of the RSC/PCC/Prec in the activity of the dlPFC and dmPFC. Further analysis indicated that the modulation observed during Hits is primarily a distributed phenomenon that relies on the interplay between different brain regions. Conclusion These results suggest that prefrontal and posterior midline cortical regions together with the dlPFC largely coordinate the processes underlying AM search, setting up the conditions on which the angular gyrus and the hippocampus may act upon when the outcome of the search is successful.

show abstract

Lives without imagery – Congenital aphantasia

Cited by 352 publications

References 10 publications

(A)phantasia and SDAM: Scientific and Personal Perspectives

(A)phantasia and SDAM: Scientific and Personal Perspectives

Mental Imagery in Translation Processes

Effective connectivity during autobiographical memory search

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About