Though the experimental condition was only recognized in 2015 , it ’s thought that around 2 pct of masses areaphantasic , meaning they have no ocular memory . However , despite not being capable to bring up up genial images , someone with aphantasia are still perfectly up to of remembering the locations of point they ’ve seen , imply that their spacial computer storage is unaffected by this odd cognitive quirkiness .
The condition aphantasia refers to a lack of a judgment ’s eye , clear it out of the question to visualize the face of a love one when not in their presence or to mentally count sheep when render to fall asleep . In malice of this , the condition is not consider a disorder , and recentsurveyshave uncover that a surprisingly gamy number of mathematician , scientist , and evenartistsare aphantasic .
To learn more about this phenomenon , a team of researchers recruit 61 people withaphantasiafrom online forums and asked them to take part in a ocular and spatial memory test , where they were shown a photograph of a elbow room and later on asked to get it from store . The same trial were administered to a cohort of 52 mass with typical ocular remembering , take into account the study writer to equate the performance of the two groups .
publish their determination in the journalCortex , the researchers explain how aphantasic participants were able to place objects in their correct locating but could not draw them in any contingent . For instance , while mass with even visual retentiveness often recreated the designs and colors they had seen in the photographs , those with aphantasia tended to represent items using rudimentary shapes like basic rectangle .
In many case , aphantasic individuals simply pen dustup like “ window ” or “ bed ” instead of take in these feature article , involve that while they were able to remember the location of items just as well as those with distinctive optic memory , they could not show them .
Despite this lack of particular , however , aphantasic player made far fewer mistakes , incorrectly identifying objects on only three occasions . In contrast , the control group made a total of 14 misapprehension , indicating an increase tendency to misremember , whether by omitting particular that had been present in the exposure or inserting physical object that had not been there .
While the study authors ca n’t explain exactly why this is the font , they advise that certain people may have mingle up their ocular memories with other rooms that they had seen antecedently .
Importantly , no differences were keep an eye on between the two radical when they were ask to copy the pic while looking at it , evoke that the results of this experimentation are specific to remembering , rather than artistic ability . It ’s also remarkable that aphantasic somebody were perfectly capable of recognizing pictures that they had visit before , incriminate that they are able-bodied to think paradigm even if they ca n’t recreate those scenes in their mind ’s eye .
Taken together , these finding intimate that spacial memory rest perfectly inviolate even when visual memory is absent , indicate that the two processes swear on separate nervous mechanisms .
