Revisiting the past and imagining the future is harder with a blind mind's eye

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-06-24 09:45

Australia; NSW

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Imagine this -  a warm sunny day from your childhood playing at the beach. Can you picture it? If you can't you might have a condition called aphantasia – which is a lack of visual imagination ability, and researchers at UNSW have found that people with this condition find it harder to revisit the past and imagine the future.  In the study, people with aphantasia described less visual detail about past events and imagined future events but not less details of other non visual aspects such as time, place, or emotion. The authors say this shows the first time that aphantasia is associated with a reduced ability to remember and imagine events across time.