Aphantasia is a neurological syndrome which affects about 2% to 5% of the population and which leads to an inability to visualize an image that is not directly in front of you.
- Mental imagery plays a key role in linking thoughts and emotions.
- Imagery is an emotional thought amplifier.
In the evening, in the dark, with a lamp pointed at their chin, many people have fun scaring their loved ones with spine-chilling stories. Some, however, are not receptive to these horror tales. It may be that they suffer from aphantasia. This neurological syndrome affects about 2% to 5% of the population and refers to the inability to represent an image that is not directly in front of you.
Mental imagery links thoughts and emotions
In a new study published on March 10 in the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Australian researchers tested the reaction of volunteers with aphantasia to reading stressful scenarios, such as being chased by a shark, falling from a cliff or being in a plane about to crash. The researchers were able to physically measure each participant’s fear response by monitoring changes in their level of sweating. This type of test is commonly used in psychology research to measure the body’s physical expression of emotions, say researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) who conducted the study.
The results showed that scary stories lose their fear factor when readers are unable to visually imagine the scene. This suggests that images may have a stronger connection to emotions than scientists previously thought, the study authors report. “We found the strongest evidence to date that mental imagery plays a key role in linking thoughts and emotionsadvanced Professor Joel Pearson, lead author of the scientific article. In all of our research to date, this is by far the biggest difference we have found between people with aphantasia and the rest of the population..”
Facing pictures, similar skin reactions
To test the role of visual imagery in fear, researchers guided 46 participants through a darkened room before attaching several electrodes to their skin, which is known to be a good conductor of electricity when a person experiences strong emotions like the fear. Among them, 22 volunteers were aphantasic and 24 were not. The scientists then left the room, turned off the light and left the participants alone as stories, told in text form, appeared on the screen in front of them. These rose crescendo in intensity, the suspense building slowly. “Skin conductivity levels quickly began to increase for those able to view the storiesthe researchers observed. The more the stories continued, the more their skin reacted.” For people with aphantasia, “skin conductivity levels remained fairly flat”, they continue.
To check for differences in fear thresholds between participants, the experiment was repeated with pictures instead of text. The result was unequivocal: the images provoked the same reactions in both groups. “These two sets of results suggest that aphantasia is not related to reduced emotion in general, but is specific to participants who read scary stories.analyzes Professor Pearson. The emotional fear response was present when participants actually saw the scene unfold in front of them. The results suggest that imagery is an emotional thought amplifier. We can think of all sorts of things, but without imagery thoughts will not experience that emotional ‘boom’..”
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