When Loren Bouyer tries to visualise a golden sunset — or any image — in her mind’s eye, nothing happens.
The University of Queensland psychology student has aphantasia, meaning she is incapable of seeing pictures or hearing sounds in her imagination.
Ms Bouyer said if she thought of an ice cream, she could understand it conceptually and imagine the tactile experience, but would be completely unable to visualise it.
“I can imagine myself holding it, I can feel it running down my fingers, I can feel the stickiness, but I can’t see it,” she said.
“It’s as though I’m blind.”
Aphantasia was known as “mind blindness” to early 1900s psychologists, who noted that some people reported being unable to form any clear mental pictures.
In Ms Bouyer’s case, her aphantasia extends to sounds, meaning she does not have an internal monologue — the proverbial voice in her head.
Ms Bouyer’s research has focused on brain activity and how that compares with people’s reported experience of their internal worlds.
Perception Lab professor Derek Arnold said he only realised he was also “a little odd” when he began researching it in more detail.
Professor Arnold said he could vividly imagine sounds, but was unaware that other people could “see” images in their mind with the same visual clarity.
“Loren and I both thought this was just a figure of speech; we were blissfully unaware other people could do this,” Professor Arnold said.
“Once you realise that other people can actually have an imagined experience, then for many of us that’s when the penny drops.”
Spectrum of internal vision
Professor Arnold said new research was uncovering links between brain morphology and the vividness of people’s subjective experiences.
He said his research suggested there were “quite profound” differences in how people perceived colour based on variations in retina sensitivity, brain activity, and the associations.
He said people fell into a spectrum, with some people having a rich internal world and others having a mind’s eye which was effectively blind.
However, Professor Arnold said the diagnostic tools for aphantasia were fairly unreliable and dependent on subjective reporting via a questionnaire.
He said more people would realise they had aphantasia when the diagnostic tools became more precise.
Ms Bouyer said she had found ways to work around her aphantasia.
When preparing a speech she said she memorised the mouth movements in lieu of an internal monologue.
When painting she said she had learned to copy an object down to the finest detail because she was unable to draw from memory.
She said she had learned how to function in the real world, but wondered what she was missing out on.
“I really enjoy learning about people’s perceptions and experiences,” she said.
“I love my drawing, but I need a reference picture.
“It would be really cool if I was able to put down on paper what I experience in a different way to how other people do it.”
