Most of us can easily conjure up mental pictures of people we’ve met, places we’ve been, and things we’re familiar with even with our eyes closed. A lot of people don’t give much thought to the fact that we have the capacity to form mental images, whether it’s while reading a fantastical book or vividly remembering the design and color of a cherished birthday cake from our youth.
While some people appear more gifted than others in this form of internal imagery, our capability to do so is more mental than visual. What if someone can not imagine the face, scenery, or room with closed eyes? These people are incapable of seeing any scenes mentally. The inability to consciously construct mental images is a hallmark of aphantasia. The estimated impacted population is close to 2%.
The Brain Can Work Differently in Individuals With a Blind Mind’s Eye
Our brain is an incredible cognitive system. With the help of sensory sensations (hearing, smell, vision, tactility, etc.), our mental system receives data from the environment. After that, the brain forms and synthesizes a subjective picture of the world.
However, it is worth noting that imagination, from the point of view of psychophysiology, has not been fully explored to date.
Therefore, from here there is only an assumption that precisely in people who have blind mind’s eye, the neural processes responsible for the creation of visual images and imagination can work differently.
At first glance, it may seem that people who have no imagination feel great discomfort in everyday life. However, this is not the case, and such brain capacity does not interfere with everyday life and communication.
Although there is no aphantasia cure, the lack of imagination can be compensated. For example, people with mind-blindness may have more developed auditory or other sensory sensations. Such compensation will be symbols and words, and they replace visual images quite well. Generally, it is not an illness so there is no need to cure it. The main task is to understand it.
What About Encoding When Lacking Imagination
Mind-blind individuals encode and retrieve memories in a manner distinct from that of vivid visualizers. Because those who are internally blind are incapable of employing visual imagery, creative memory techniques are frequently required. Thus, an individual possesses the capacity to impart novel viewpoints and augment problem-solving proficiencies. However, one occasionally exhibits a lack of visual memory, which is a critical element in accurately recalling past events with great detail.
Although the mind’s eye blindness makes it impossible to comprehend mental images, memory is unaffected. Many people with aphantasia have normal memory functions, but some rely more on conceptual or verbal clues. Rather than being an illness, this is just a variance in how one imagines things that sometimes may affect one’s memory.