An Integration Model of Mental Imagery and Aphantasia: Conceptual Framework, Neuromechanistic Pathways, and Clinical Implications Aphantasia, the strong diminution or complete absence of mental imagery, challenges long-standing views of imagery as central to cognition. Competing …

The dominant view holds that aphantasics have unconscious imagery. We propose that instead they have sensory precursors: pre-perceptual codes that never get integrated into experience. New integration model unifying attention/interoception explains why: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

How did imagery come about in evolution? You can't plan without knowing what you're planning for. That's why interoception is the evolutionary foundation of imagery, and why sensory and interoceptive components are bound during imagery construction. New evolutionary theory:

osf.io/preprints/ps...

Mental imagery as part of an 'inwardly focused' cognitive style - PubMed What is the source of individual differences in the experience of mental imagery? While parallels are often drawn between imagery abilities and the perception of external stimuli, we propose that these differences need to be considered in a wider context that encompasses personality traits and tende …

@timokvamme.bsky.social indeed, and "inward focus" also may link personality traits (and mental health) pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39222775/

(PDF) An Integration Model of Mental Imagery and Aphantasia: Conceptual Framework, Neuromechanistic Pathways, and Clinical Implications PDF | Aphantasia, the strong diminution or complete absence of mental imagery, challenges long-standing views of imagery as central to cognition.... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ...

....and mechanistically, could be due to insula and salience network biasing competition towards external percepts due to poor interoceptive input: www.researchgate.net/publication/...

The Two Faces of #PTSD: Fear vs. Emotional Pain. Our new research in Biological Psychiatry @biologicalpsych.bsky.social identifies distinct clinical & neural profiles.

AI says no one reads long papers, so we made an infographic!👇

Full Paper (for the insistents😉): doi.org/10.1016/j.bi...

The role of subjective interoception in autobiographical deficits in aphantasia - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - The role of subjective interoception in autobiographical deficits in aphantasia

New evidence on the role of subjective interoception in congenital aphantasia (and associated autobiographical deficits); with @mmonzel.bsky.social and Yoko Nagai

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

My group has cog neuro PhD positions available (at the University of Macau). We work on mind-body links, particularly with respect to imagery/aphantasia and mental health. Please get in touch if you are interested!

Our N≈500 paper on the neural architecture of mental imagery is out! Fun work with @timokvamme.bsky.social, @juhasilvanto.bsky.social, Massimo Lumaca and many others.

Neural Network Topologies Supporting Individual Variations in Vividness of Visual Imagery Vividness of visual imagery varies considerably across individuals, yet its neural underpinnings remain unclear. As emphasized in recent debates, a ke…

New study from @timokvamme.bsky.social
suggests we may have overlooked a critical brain region in mental imagery research: the insula:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
After decades of research focusing on sensory/frontal/parietal regions, the insula may be just as central to imagery.

In this preprint we report that childhood trauma is linked to visual imagery deficits. Across imagery spectrum, severe childhood trauma is associated with a 20% decrease in imagery vividness vs low trauma; 4-5x higher prevalence of imagery deficits in severe vs low trauma.
osf.io/preprints/ps...

Imagery/aphantasia: all roads lead to insula!

New comprehensive model combining attentional and interoceptive views of aphantasia.
Was a pleasure to be part of this with @christianoscholz.bsky.social @jianghaoliu.bsky.social @mmonzel.bsky.social @timokvamme.bsky.social
osf.io/preprints/ps...

Autonomic, Neurodevelopmental, and Early Adversity Correlates of Acquired Aphantasia Aphantasia (the inability to voluntarily generate mental imagery) has traditionally been studied as a congenital or neurological condition. However, h…

affective-autonomic pathway to acquired aphantasia: appr. 60% of acquired cases of aphantasia have psychogenic origin. In the interoceptive model, affective disorders disrupt the integration of bodily & cognitive signals needed for imagery. work with Yoko Nagai www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

yes, studies have found differences in RT, suggestive of different strategy in aphants. MR ability correlates with heartbeat discrimination; perhaps issue in aphantasia is general capacity to access and manipulate internal representations vs external stimuli (www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-6... )

that's a great idea actually! Good luck!

seems that the auditory cortex’s route into salience hubs and onward to reward centers is selectively weakened....

yes, that's an interesting possibility! Re music, the most fascinating link I've come across (it was a group at NYU i think) who found very high comorbidity of aphantasia with musical anhedonia (but not other types of anhedonia...)..

very interesting work! they don't mention aphantasia or brain basis specifically but i think it would fit in well, with insula the mediating link! (we have argued this re aphantasia link.springer.com/article/10.1... )

The role of interoceptive inference in theory of mind Own mental states depend on inferred interoceptive states. Understanding another’s mental states (ToM) also entails interoceptive predictions. Multimodal expectations at deep hierarchical levels contr...

yes, because ToM deficit is also a result of suboptimal interoception. In other words, interoception is foundation of both ToM (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC... ) and imagery. So in short, in interoception is the foundation of both so thus a more fundamental explanation.

The main issue in aphantasia research is that is too focused on the senses; like blaming muscles for paralysis after a stroke. The real problem may lie deeper, i. interoception and the autonomic nervous system (e.g. congenital aphantasics show lower POTS symptoms, suggestive of lower level issues).

...but what do you make of aphantasia being linked to various of those scales... e.g. self-reported autonomic reactivity (BPQ); chilhdood trauma (CTQ), autism/adhd (also VVIQ is linked to cardioceptive sensitivity)...the overall pattern suggests some kind of interoceptive agnosia

misophonia is linked to abnormal interoceptive processing....as is autism....this could be the link....and ther potential link to aphantasia

yes and that's critical distinction...aphantasia may link to sense of agency which is to large extent an interoceptive process..

It’s perhaps not misdescription but reduced access to internal states. Cong /Acq aphants self-report lower/higher autonomic reactivity vs controls, and cardioceptive sensitivity tracks VVIQ.

New from Arnold @visnerd.bsky.social lab:

Mental rotation is often regarded as paradigmatic for #mentalimagery. But it turns out people often don't use imagery for mental rotation - & when they do it is often not useful (same viewpoint trials). #visionscience #psychscisky

doi.org/10.1016/j.co...

Objective priming from pre-imagining inputs before binocular rivalry presentations does not predict individual differences in the subjective intensity of imagined experiences Most people can imagine images that they experience within their mind's eye. However, there are marked individual differences, with some people report…

been a fan of @visnerd.bsky.social 's work for 20 years... his new paper is really important as it shows the limitation of Binocular Rivalry as measure of imagery vividness...important implications for aphantasia research; BR may not be objective gold standard

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

will become a classic in the field, i think.

Such fascinating work! I also 100% recommend this paper from the same @kerblooee.bsky.social group - the first predictive model of how we distinguish internal and external percepts...explaining imagery, halllucination... great glinical implications academic.oup.com/nc/article/2...

AI 2027 A research-backed AI scenario forecast.

*Worth your time to read!*

Some experts predict the impact of superhuman AI over the next decade in “AI 2027”, a scenario that represents their best guess about what that might look like very soon & it’s implications for all of us:

ai-2027.com

Really interesting work! Muraki and Pexman are taking aphantasia research into fascinating new directions!

➡️ Faster processing of motor-linked words in aphantasia suggest that mental simulation is intact even in the absence of conscious mental imagery.

📄 Full article in this Neuropsychologia special issue (doi.org/10.1016/j.ne...)