Congenital lack and extraordinary ability in object and spatial imagery: An investigation on sub-types of aphantasia and hyperphantasia

It is now online the Article “Congenital lack and extraordinary ability in object and spatial imagery: An investigation on sub-types of aphantasia and hyperphantasia” by Liana Palermo, Maddalena Boccia, Laura Piccardi and Raffaella Nori, published in Consciousness and Cognition. The article suggests a distinction between two subtypes of aphantasia/hyperphantasia. Spatial aphantasia is associated with difficulties in visuo-spatial mental imagery and sense of direction. Instead, in object aphantasia there are difficulties in imaging single items and events — with no mental visualization of objects, out-of-focus, and black-and-white mental images more frequent than expected — in sense of direction and face recognition. Furthermore, associative involuntary imagery can be spared in aphantasia. The opposite pattern of performance was found in spatial and object hyperphantasia.

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