Dr Dougal Sutherland: Aphantasia

A couple of months ago we covered Prosopagnosia – the inability to recognise faces. Following on from that, today we’re covering Aphantasia – the inability to see mental images.  

Most of the time most of us, if asked to remember something or “picture” something in our minds, we create a mental image of the thing or person.  

For example, if asked to remember what you had for breakfast this morning, many of us will mentally see the weetbix and toast – not always in perfect detail, but there will be a picture of the thing.  

But for a small number of people, this is just a theoretical idea. They have aphantasia.  

Estimated to affect about 1% of people – not a disorder in itself but considered one end of a spectrum related to how well or poorly we can visualise things in our mind. 

Some people become aphantasic after a head injury or damage to the brain. Others have never had it and assume that terms like “mental pictures” were just meant to illustrate the idea of thinking about something, rather than referring to an actual thing that other people do.  

There’s been a growth in the use of the term aphantasia since the mid 2000s after the publication of an article in a neuroscience journal describing the condition, which led others to go “I’ve got that too!”  

At the other end of the spectrum is hyperphantasia – mental images are so clear and vivid that it’s hard to distinguish them from reality. People are aware that their visions are imaginary though – if you don’t realise this it’s an hallucination.  

Some things that are associated with aphantasia: over-represented in people who work in maths and IT roles; much poorer autobiographical memory; also much poorer recognition of other people’s faces and probably some overlap with prosopagnosia; occurs more in people with autism. 

For hyperphantasia – much better autobiographical memory and over-represented in artists.  

Interestingly, people with aphantasia typically report that they do dream and see images in dreams. 

There are some indications that there are differences in brain wiring for people at either end of the mental imagery spectrum but no conclusive proof yet! Some suggestion that most children have very strong mental imagery but that they lose this ability as they grow, and the brain goes through a “pruning” process whereby it loses connections that aren’t so useful or needed.    

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks AB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
We'll take you to Wellington before midday to day to
see how conditions are looking ahead of the Derby this
evening before midday as well. We're in Sydney. Oasis are
playing their final gig of their incredible world tour. It
is just it has broken all manner of records. I
would love to I would love to see the surge
pricing actually for a fas across the ditch for this

(00:33):
weekend because so many key wes have headed over to
Sydney or Melbourne to see Oasis perform. Our music reviewer
is there. He's going to the last show tonight, so
he'll give us a bit of a vibe check on that.
Right now, it's nine minutes past eleven, Jack dam time
to catch up with clinical psychologist Google Sutherland, who is
with us this morning. Doogle, you didn't get tickets to Oasis.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Ah, No, I didn't. I didn't even I didn't even
think about it. I wasn't the biggest Oasis fan. I've
got to be honest with you.

Speaker 4 (01:00):
I appreciated him, but I didn't so I think I
was just a little bit I just missed their vibe.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
I think miss the thought cause you would have been
without delving too deep. You've about pout in the right generation,
aren't you.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
Yeah? I was. Look my big band, you know, lifelong
Connor band was the Smiths.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Really so that so much dog.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
And I take no responsibility for what Morrissey does.

Speaker 4 (01:24):
Yeah yeah, but you know for me, that was like
the ultimate band ever, right, and nobody's ever lived up
to them. I don't think so, you know, I could
sort of take all leg oasis. I definitely appreciate who
they are and what they've done.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yea.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
But yeah, well, I mean it would be actually an
interesting clinical study the brother's relationship, wouldn't it. I mean, so,
I I've got an I've got an interesting take on this,
given how how much they seem to hate each other,
the Gallagher brothers and have seemed to hate each other
over the years. I reckon the reason that they have
managed to stay together on this world tour is this

(02:00):
incredible psychological phenomenon called money. I'm not sure if.

Speaker 4 (02:05):
Yeah, I entirely agree, didn't am I right? And thinking
that they might have even said that that's why they
were going more.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Money, more or less. Yeah, I mean, I mean, they
can only imagine how much they would have made. I
was good on them. I don't know for a moment
that anyway.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
And they've only got one more show to.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Only one more show they can get through tonight, then
you'd hope they've made enough money that they probably don't
need to do any more for the rest of Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
Absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Hey, you're bringing to us a new word worth a
fair amount on a triple word score this morning. Fantasia.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
Fantasia. Yeah, look, it was I was.

Speaker 4 (02:41):
I was just I came across it sort of earlier
in the week and it reminded me.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
You know, we had a discussion a month.

Speaker 4 (02:47):
Or two ago about prosopagnosia, which is where you can't
recognize other people's face faces, and a fantasia is sort
of related. In fact, some people with protopagnosia have it,
but it's where you can't see mental images. So, you know,
most of us, if they if I said to people
you know listening, you know, imagine what you had or

(03:08):
remember what you had for breakfast this morning, Remember what
the breakfast table looked like, most of us summon up
a mental picture of what that looks like you know you,
And sometimes it's good quality and sometimes it's a bit
fuzzy quality, but it's a mental image in our head.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
People with a fantasia don't have that mental image in
their head at all. They just don't.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
They just don't see in pictures they do. They don't
have a They don't think in pictures at all, which
is quite surprising and I think would be quite it's quite,
you know, quite a weird thing to discover that other
people do, if you've never had this in your life.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
And do they know why this happens, Why some have
it and some don't.

Speaker 4 (03:46):
Oh, look, some people will get it after it do
get it after something like a head injury or some
sort of brain injury. And some people are just apparently
or seem to be just born with it. And they
these are people that when you know, people say, oh,
the mental image or the picture in my mind, that
they think it's just it's just a turn of phrase.
I don't think we're actually referring to a picture in

(04:09):
our minds.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
But because they've never had one, which is very I
just find it intriguing that you would never have that.
And how I was going to say, how dull life
might be.

Speaker 4 (04:18):
But I'm probably being I'm probably being disingenuous there.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
But yeah, I would change in life amazingly. I think
if you couldn't see in pictures.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah right. Are there any upsides to it?

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Are there any upsides to it?

Speaker 4 (04:34):
Well? It is I don't know if it's a it's
an upside. It is it is associated with, or more
likely in people who are who are in kind of
sciences and it and those sorts of things, and but
but there aren't two.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
There doesn't seem to be too many advantages of not
having it.

Speaker 4 (04:57):
It just seems to be the extreme of one sort
of aspect of human mind is that some people have.
In fact, there is a thing called hyper fantasia where
that's the other extreme, where you where you see images vividly,
it's very difficult to almost distinguish those from reality, which
will also be a very interesting thing to experience too.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, right, man, I wonder how people even know they
have it to kind of just say, well, I like,
think of a cheese toasty right now, just yeah, picture
of cheese toasty and how delicious looks. Oh yeah, And
if you can't that you're seeing, then you know, you've
got Itah.

Speaker 4 (05:37):
Essentially, I think it's it's it's realizing that that people
actually do see the picture of you know, as you say,
if you close your eyes and think of a cheese toasty,
then many of us will conjure up that image of
a cheese toasty. And sometimes it's photo quality, and sometimes
it's just like a vague sort of outline, but it's

(05:57):
there as a mental image. And if you can't do that,
then you probably don't see in pictures.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
There was a big sort of there was about ten
to fifteen years.

Speaker 4 (06:06):
There was sort of a big growth in it in
the or and people acknowledging that they had it after
an article was published and and somebody went, hang on,
do you you mean you actually see those in pictures?

Speaker 3 (06:18):
Because I've never had those? Yeah at all. So it's
been a fascinating discovery, I think for if you, if
you didn't, if you have a fancousty, have suddenly gone,
oh here we go.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
The brain amazing eh. But it's just this is a
brain wiring thing. It's just yeah, okay, well we're just
going to do it completely differently.

Speaker 4 (06:36):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And in the brain wiring they think
it could be nobody knows for sure yet, but they
think it could be that. You know that that actually
it's related to when our brains lose connections. In the
first three years of life. Our brains go through this
process called neuronal pruning, where you were almost like you

(06:56):
prune off.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
The branches of a of a tree that you don't need.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
You prune off neur own neurons in the brain that
you don't need, and that maybe you lose it then,
and maybe that's maybe that's why many adults don't have
as vivid imagination as kids, because those those neurons, those
brain connections get snipped off because we don't need them
as much.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
But it's a fascinating thing, the brain. It is.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, that's very it's very Oliver sex of you this morning.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
Yeah, thanks, I'll take that and.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
A good way. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely fascinating. Okay, hey,
thank you so much. Google.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
Awesome.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
Well, then you get back to brooding in a dark
room and listening to girlfriend and a coma or something
like that, and catch again very shortly. Ah. That is
Keen Smith's fan Google Sutherland from Umbrella Well Being For
more

Speaker 1 (07:44):
From Saturday Morning with Jack Tame listen live to news
talks that'd be from nine am Saturday, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio