First, more should be said to discard the possibility that these examples involve both episodic memory and sensory imagination. This is true, but two considerations are in order. The idea is that in conjuring up, for instance, the aroma of lavender, or the sound of The Sound of Silence I am simply retrieving past information. It might be pointed out that the right specific psychological attitude at stake in most of the aforementioned cases is episodic memory, rather than sensory imagination. This would explain in which sense they still possess imaginative abilities. Most aphantasics lack sensory imagination, but arguably can exploit other forms of imagination. Sensory imagination, however, does not exhaust the imaginative realm, therefore we shouldn’t jump to the hasty conclusion that aphantasics have no imagination. I show that core cases of aphantasia are better understood as impairments in sensory imagination only, but I indicate empirical strategies to investigate whether some cases of aphantasia rather involve impairments in mental imagery, which would point toward a plurality of forms of aphantasia. Drawing on this distinction, I suggest three possible conditions: (i) impairment in mental imagery only, (ii) impairment in sensory imagination only, (iii) impairment in both mental imagery and sensory imagination. Can aphantasia tell us anything about the nature and role of our imaginative abilities? I contend that an important distinction that can shed light on this question has been largely overlooked, namely that between two senses of mental imagery: as a type of mental content (viz., mental imagery strictly speaking), and as a kind of psychological attitude (viz., sensory imagination). Yet, aphantasics do not seem to be much affected by their condition. Intuitively it may seem that we cannot have a normal life without the possession of imaginative abilities. The Greek word phantasia, listed in the Dictionary of Spiritual Terms, translates to 'imagination.' The word aphantasia, by contrast, represents difficulties in creating mental imagery with one's imagination.Aphantasia, a recently labelled spectrum condition affecting mental imagery, has brought to the fore the centrality of imagination in our lives. Adam Zeman, neurologist and professor of cognitive and behavioral neurology, gave aphantasia its name in 2015 after encountering a patient who lost their ability to visualize mental images following surgery (per Aphantasia Network).Īlthough the name for this unique occurrence is fairly new, the term 'phantasia' dates way back to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle in De Anima (On the Soul), Part III, as explained by the Aphantasia Network. Since then, more researchers have taken a special interest in how differences in the brain may relate to this mysterious lack of mental imagery. However, the mechanisms of this experience were initially introduced in 1880 by renowned scientist Francis Galton in his paper Statistics of Mental Imagery. Because aphantasia had not been studied extensively until recently, it is not yet well understood by researchers.

Galton aphantasia