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Phantasia

A group including professor Adam Zeman of Exeter University has published a new paper on aphantasia and hyperphantasia with some interesting results. The paper is titled Phantasia – The psychological significance of lifelong visual imagery vividness extremes and is based on data from 2,400 participants.

Key findings:

  • aphantasia is associated with scientific and mathematical occupations, hyperphantasia is associated with ‘creative’ professions
  • participants with aphantasia report an elevated rate of difficulty with face recognition and autobiographical memory, participants with hyperphantasia report an elevated rate of synaesthesia
  • around half those with aphantasia describe an absence of wakeful imagery in all sense modalities, while a majority dream visually
  • aphantasia appears to run within families more often than would be expected by chance

Read the full paper here.

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