Summary: A new research reveals that aphantasics, individuals unable to comprehend, are more resistant to spontaneous physical thoughts, such as imagining a green elephant. Aphantasics appear to divert their thoughts to other mental processes, like philosophical ideas or audio daydreaming, despite the frequent aggressive imagery that vivid visual imaginations can produce.
This suggests that aphantasia is a component of the diversity of human thoughts, with advantages like a balance between the failure to visualize and a decreased susceptibility to overbearing imagery. These findings challenge the idea that intellectual imagery is universal and show how different people think and act in different ways.
Essential Information
- Definition of aphantasia: Aphantasics are less prone to spontaneous visualization and cannot freely visualize.
- Intrusive Thoughts: Those who have colorful visual imaginations are more likely to encounter intrusive imagery.
- Mental Diversity: Aphantasia offers advantages like reduced physical intrusions but different types of thinking.
Source: The Talk
” Tell a man he doesn’t think of a red rhino and he didn’t get that beast out of his mind”!
This , estimate, from Curt Siodmak’s 1974 book City in the Sky, describes how difficult it can be to reduce our ideas. ” Don’t think of a green elephant” has become a typical example of how hard it can be to consciously avoid visualising.
Research , suggests , some of you, having read about a green elephant, may have imagined seeing one.
Nevertheless, some individuals, like us, have aphantasia – we never visualise. So we’re a much perplexed by the notion that others can see things that aren’t there.
In a , new research, we have found proof the red elephant problem is not common. Some people, including those with aphantasia, have spontaneous visible thoughts blocked from their thoughts.
What is aphantasia?
Individuals with aphantasia have no way of deliberately imagining what is happening in our minds. So if you ask us not to think about a pink rhinoceros, we didn’t visualise one, because we didn’t.
Aphantasia is generally characterized as a gap. Individuals usually become upset when they first discover they have aphantasia because they realize that others can do things they cannot. For instance, it might be fun to picture seeing the figures depicted in a publication or a distant loved one.
But, shortfalls are usually balanced by benefits. There are  , suggestions , individuals with aphantasia ( or aphantasics, as we’re often called ) may have a heightened sensitivity to spontaneous intrusive thoughts.
A further way of examining it is that people with different visualization abilities are a part of a wide range of individual minds. Most people would include regular capability, and a tiny minority may have a very strong ability to visualize, while aphantasics would have no capacity.
Vivid mental pictures and spontaneous illustrations
In our fresh study, we examined whether there is a connection between the power of women’s physical imaginations and their propensity to visualize even when they try not to. People with stunning visual imaginations were more likely to experience involuntary visualizations, and we could measure brain activity to identify these outcomes.
Some people may enjoy having the ability to picture seeing intricate scenes whenever they like. But, this seems to occur at the cost of not being able to shut down these activities.
Most people appear to be more able to suppress these feelings, despite having less attractive pictures.
Are aphantasics capable of having tranquil thoughts?
Aphantasics are unlikely to have spontaneous illustrations. Does that imply that they have calm thoughts?
People who reported having poor pictures were less likely to picture things they were trying to avoid seeing, according to our study. Nevertheless, they were more likely to report mind-wandering.
If this describes aphantasics, rather of visualising stuff we are told not to think about, we may change our minds to different thoughts, such as what’s for dinner. So we wouldn’t have any more tranquil minds, only a resistance to consider issues we are attempting to put out of perspective.
If aphantasics do no visualise, do they have dreams?
From our own practice, we can verify at least some aphantasics have heads that wander. But when our brains wander, neither of us imagines seeing items. Our experience are unique.
When Derek’s head wanders he imagines hearing and engaging in strictly sound meetings. He did not realize until recently that these imagined conversations may be characterized as his daydreaming experience because daydreaming is generally associated with vision.
Loren cannot visualise , or , think hearing items. She experiences her feelings as various structure- and movement-related feelings, and she does this while wandering.
Are aphantasics resilient to stress from re-living experiences?
Perhaps.
Although our research suggests that aphantasics are tolerant to involuntary visualizations, more research is required to determine whether we are resistant to reliving traumas or whether these will just trigger various kinds of imagined experience.
Siodmak was mistaken, it is obvious. If you tell people they don’t believe of a red elephant, some of us will happily set that creature out of our brains, and change our thoughts to other matters. What’s for breakfast?
About this information about aphantasia and physical neuroscience research
Writers: Derek Arnold and Loren N. Bouyer
Source: The Conversation
Contact: Derek Arnold and Loren N. Bouyer – The Conversation
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Start exposure.
” Don’t think of a red elephant: Personal differences in representation predict spontaneous pictures and its neurological corresponds” by Derek Arnold et cetera. Cortex
Abstract
Don’t think of a pink elephant: Individual differences in visualization affect involuntary imagery and its neural correlates.
There are significant differences between people’s capacity to have imagined visual experiences, from a lifelong inability ( Congenital Aphantasia ) to those who claim to have had imagined experiences that are as vivid as they can actually see ( Hyper-Phantasia ).
Congenital Aphantasia has typically been viewed as a cognitive deficit, but it is possible that a more resisted reaction to intrusive thoughts, which are interpreted as an imagined sensation, is balanced by a weak or absent ability to have imagined visual sensations.
Here, we report on a direct test of that proposition.
We asked people to imagine having a range of audio and visual experiences while recording their brain activity using electroencephalography ( EEG), either to try or not to try.
Ratings that account for the subjective vividness of different people’s voluntary visualizations were intended to indicate whether they would also report having involuntary visualizations, such as an imaginable encounter with a pink elephant when asked not to.
By using neural correlates of disinhibition, working memory, and neural feedback, one can predict the prevalence of various people’s involuntary visualisations and the typical vividness of their visualizations.
Our research suggests that the subjective intensity of a person’s typical visualisation experience can influence their propensity to have involuntary visual experiences.
