Some people don’t have a mind’s eye. Scientists want to know why
The senses of sight and sound are usually mingled in the brain, but not for people with aphantasia.
A researcher with the condition studies how the senses collaborate — and after they don’t
Most individuals can “see” vivid imagery in their minds. They are ready to assume a chirping bird from hearing the sounds of one, as an illustration. But people with aphantasia can’t try this. A fresh in trying out about explores how their brains work.
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Growing up, Roberto S. Luciani had hints that his brain worked in a distinct way than most people. He didn’t relate when people complained about a movie character taking a look different than what they’d pictured from the book, as an illustration.
However it wasn’t until he became a teen that things at last clicked. His mother had just woken up and became telling him about a dream she had. “Movielike,” is how she described it.
“Up until then, I believed that cartoon depictions of imagination were exaggerated,” Luciani says, “I asked her what she meant and quickly realized my visual imagery became no longer functioning like hers.”
That’s because Luciani has a condition most sometimes called aphantasia — an inability to picture objects, people and scenes in his mind. When he became growing up, the term didn’t even exist. But now, Luciani, a cognitive scientist on 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.
In a recent in trying out about, Luciani and colleagues explored the connections between the senses, for the duration of this case, hearing and seeing. In most of our brains, these two senses collaborate. Auditory information influences activity in brain areas that cope with vision. But in people with aphantasia, this connection isn’t as strong, researchers report November four in Current Biology.
While in a brain scanner, blindfolded people listened to Three sound scenes: A wooded area filled with birds, a crowd of people, and a side road bustling with traffic. In 10 people without aphantasia, these auditory scenes create reliable neural hallmarks in parts of the visual cortex. But in 23 people with aphantasia, these hallmarks were weaker.
The results highlight the sort of brain organizations, says cognitive neuroscientist Lars Muckli, also of the University of Glasgow. “Imagine the brain has an interconnectedness that's available in several strengths,” he says. At one end of the spectrum are people with synesthesia, for whom sounds and sights are tightly mingled (SN: eleven/22/eleven). “In the midrange, you experience the mind’s eye — knowing something is no longer real, but sounds can trigger some images for your mind. After which you definately have aphantasia,” Muckli says. “Sounds don’t trigger any visual experience, no longer even a faint one.”
The results lend a hand explain how brains of people with and without aphantasia differ, and as well as they give clues about brains more most often, Muckli says. “The senses of the brain are more interconnected than our textbooks tell us.”
The results also raise philosophical questions about each and every of the several ways people make sense of the field (SN: 6/28/24). Aphantasia “exists in a realm of invisible differences between those that make our lived experiences unique, without us realizing,” Luciani says. “I in finding it fascinating that there would possibly be other differences lurking within the shadow of us assuming people experience the field like us.”
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