What is the Link Between Mental Imagery and Sensory Sensitivity? Insights from Aphantasia

Abstract

People with aphantasia have impoverished visual imagery so struggle to form mental pictures in the mind's eye. By testing people with and without aphantasia, we investigate the relationship between sensory imagery and sensory sensitivity (i.e., hyper- or hypo-reactivity to incoming signals through the sense organs). In Experiment 1 we first show that people with aphantasia report impaired imagery across multiple domains (e.g., olfactory, gustatory etc.) rather than simply vision. Importantly, we also show that imagery is related to sensory sensitivity: aphantasics reported not only lower imagery, but also lower sensory sensitivity. In Experiment 2, we showed a similar relationship between imagery and sensitivity in the general population. Finally, in Experiment 3 we found behavioural corroboration in a Pattern Glare Task, in which aphantasics experienced less visual discomfort and fewer visual distortions typically associated with sensory sensitivity. Our results suggest for the very first time that sensory imagery and sensory sensitivity are related, and that aphantasics are characterised by both lower imagery, and lower sensitivity. Our results also suggest that aphantasia (absence of visual imagery) may be more accurately defined as a subtype of a broader imagery deficit we name dysikonesia, in which weak or absent imagery occurs across multiple senses.

Visual imagery skills and risk attitude

“…The main limitation of our study is that the sample is not large enough for comparisons across subgroups, or for investigation of the risk behavior of individuals with aphantasia (those with no mind’s eye) or with hyperphantasia (whose mental images are as vivid as actual visual perception). While aphantasia has been associated with impaired imagery across multiple sensory domains (including auditory, olfactory and gustatory imagination) 35 , 36 , and with intellectual disability 37 , we are not aware of a study that relates it to choice behavior. Such an investigation would require a more targeted participant recruitment 38 .…”

Aphantasia, dysikonesia, anauralia: call for a single term for the lack of mental imagery–Commentary on Dance et al. (2021) and Hinwar and Lambert (2021)

“…Indeed, Zeman et al (2015) noted that ten out of 21 participants reported that imagery in all sensory modalities was affected. Subsequent work indicates that a majority of those lacking visual imagery also lack imagery in other sense modalities (Dance et al, 2021;Dawes et al, 2020;Zeman et al, 2020).…”

“…Second, the term 'dysikonesia' (Dance et al, 2021) has been suggested for multisensory or global aphantasia, on the mistaken assumption that aphantasia refers only to the lack of specifically visual imagery. Dance et al (2021) justify the assumed specificity of aphantasia for visual imagery by referring to the same Greek word phantázo.…”

“…Second, the term 'dysikonesia' (Dance et al, 2021) has been suggested for multisensory or global aphantasia, on the mistaken assumption that aphantasia refers only to the lack of specifically visual imagery. Dance et al (2021) justify the assumed specificity of aphantasia for visual imagery by referring to the same Greek word phantázo. However, their translation, 'I make visible' (Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001), is not always appropriate, as the word's above-mentioned application to aural hallucinations shows.…”

“…A more comprehensively adequate translation of phantázō is 'I make appear' (Pantelia, 2011) and imagery in all modalities can 'appear' in the mind. Moreover, the term 'dysikonesia' (Dance et al, 2021) has some specific weaknesses: First, the etymological root of dysikonesia, the Greek term eikōn (εἰκών), normally refers to physical objects, such as pictures or statues (Pantelia, 2011). A passage in Plato's Philebus (39c) does use eikōn as a term for mental images, but in a metaphorical way: the images are produced by 'a painter in the psyche', and Plato needs to add to eikōn the qualification 'in the psyche' in order to make his meaning clear.…”