Summary: People with hyperphantasia—an unusually vivid capacity for mental imagery—show stronger functional connections between the brain’s visual processing network and decision-making regions. By contrast, people with aphantasia—who cannot form visual images—show weaker connectivity between these areas.
Source: University of Exeter
New research identifies distinct brain connectivity, memory, and personality features that differentiate people at opposite extremes of visual imagery vividness. The findings help explain how the mind’s eye shapes perception, memory, and decision-related brain activity.
Researchers at the University of Exeter report the first systematic neuropsychological and brain imaging study comparing people with aphantasia (little or no voluntary visual imagery), hyperphantasia (extremely vivid imagery), and individuals with average imagery vividness. The study, published in Cerebral Cortex Communications and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, combines resting-state and task-based fMRI with a range of cognitive and personality assessments.
The team scanned 24 participants with aphantasia, 25 with hyperphantasia, and 20 controls with mid-range imagery vividness. Alongside imaging, participants completed memory tests, autobiographical recollection tasks, face-recognition assessments, and standard personality inventories. This comprehensive design made it possible to link subjective experience of imagery vividness with objective brain function and behavior.
Resting-state fMRI showed that hyperphantasic participants have stronger connectivity between the visual network—the set of brain regions that process visual information and is active during imagery—and prefrontal cortices involved in attention and decision-making. These elevated connections were measurable while participants rested and likely engaged in spontaneous thoughts or mind-wandering, suggesting that vivid imagery correlates with persistent, trait-like network coupling.
In behavioral measures, groups performed similarly on standard memory tests, but clear differences emerged in tasks that rely on vivid mental imagery. Hyperphantasic participants produced richer, more detailed descriptions of imagined scenarios and recalled autobiographical memories with greater vividness than controls, who in turn outperformed participants with aphantasia. People with aphantasia also reported more difficulty with face recognition.
Personality assessments revealed consistent trends: participants with aphantasia tended to score lower on extraversion, while those with hyperphantasia showed higher openness to experience. The study also found that traits associated with the autistic spectrum and face-recognition difficulties were reported more often in the aphantasia group.
Professor Adam Zeman, who coined the terms “aphantasia” and “hyperphantasia,” said: “Our research indicates for the first time that a weaker connection between the parts of the brain responsible for vision and frontal regions involved in decision-making and attention leads to aphantasia. However, this shouldn’t be viewed as a disadvantage – it’s a different way of experiencing the world. Many aphantasics are extremely high-achieving, and we’re now keen to explore whether the personality and memory differences we observed indicate contrasting ways of processing information, linked to visual imagery ability.”
About this visual neuroscience research news
Source: University of Exeter
Contact: Louise Vennells – University of Exeter
Image: The image is in the public domain
Original Research: Open access. “Behavioral and Neural Signatures of Visual Imagery Vividness Extremes: Aphantasia versus Hyperphantasia” by Adam Zeman et al., Cerebral Cortex Communications. DOI: 10.1093/texcom/tgab035
Abstract
Behavioral and Neural Signatures of Visual Imagery Vividness Extremes: Aphantasia versus Hyperphantasia
While the possibility of absent visual imagery was noted by Francis Galton in the 1880s, systematic study of this individual difference has been limited until recent years. The terms “aphantasia” and “hyperphantasia” describe the extremes of imagery vividness and have generated considerable interest from both researchers and the public.
In this study, participants with aphantasia (n = 24), hyperphantasia (n = 25), and midrange imagery vividness (n = 20) completed a battery of neuropsychological assessments and underwent both resting-state and task-based fMRI. Behaviorally, the groups performed similarly on standard memory assessments, but substantial differences occurred in autobiographical memory and imagination tasks: hyperphantasic participants produced the most detailed recollections and imaginings, followed by controls, and then aphantasic participants.
Self-reported difficulties with face recognition and higher prevalence of autistic-spectrum traits were more common among those with aphantasia. Personality measures indicated decreased extraversion in the aphantasia group and increased openness in the hyperphantasia group.
Neuroimaging results showed stronger resting-state functional connectivity between prefrontal cortices and the visual network in hyperphantasic compared to aphantasic participants. In task-based fMRI, greater activation in anterior parietal regions was observed for hyperphantasic and control participants relative to aphantasic participants when visualizing famous faces and places versus perceiving them.
Together, these behavioral and neural signatures validate visual imagery vividness as a meaningful dimension of human variation and provide a foundation for further study of how imagery influences cognition, memory, and personality.