Most people can “see” vivid imagery in their minds. They can imagine a chirping bird from hearing the sounds of one, for example. But people with

Some people don’t have a mind’s eye. Scientists want to know why

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2024-11-23 01:30:07

Most people can “see” vivid imagery in their minds. They can imagine a chirping bird from hearing the sounds of one, for example. But people with aphantasia can’t do this. A new study explores how their brains work.

Growing up, Roberto S. Luciani had hints that his brain worked differently than most people. He didn’t relate when people complained about a movie character looking different than what they’d pictured from the book, for instance. But it wasn’t until he was a teenager that things finally clicked. His mother had just woken up and was telling him about a dream she had. “Movielike,” is how she described it.

“Up until then, I assumed that cartoon depictions of imagination were exaggerated,” Luciani says, “I asked her what she meant and quickly realized my visual imagery was not functioning like hers.”

That’s because Luciani has a condition called aphantasia — an inability to picture objects, people and scenes in his mind. When he was growing up, the term didn’t even exist. But now, Luciani, a cognitive scientist at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, and other scientists are getting a clearer picture of how some brains work, including those with a blind mind’s eye.

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