Science Quickly Does Not Being Able to Picture Something in Your Mind Affect Your Creativity?
Feb 27, 2023
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Aphantasia Is A Real, Measurable Phenomenon
- About 1% of people have aphantasia and cannot visualize anything in their mind's eye.
- Their internal experience when asked to imagine is effectively 'black on black' rather than a mental photograph.
Subjective Ratings Mislead Imagery Research
- Questionnaires alone give unreliable imagery measures because people rate subjective experiences differently.
- Joel Pearson's lab develops objective tasks to measure mental imagery like a 'microscope for the mind.'
Scary Stories Evoke Different Physiological Responses
- In a lab test, people read scary stories while researchers measured skin conductance.
- Those with imagery showed escalating responses, while people with aphantasia showed a flat line for the same written stories.