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BBC - Future - This man had no idea his mind is ‘blind’ until last week

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This man had no idea his mind is ‘blind’ until last week Imagine realising that you’ve spent your whole life unable to visualise anything in your mind. Helen Thomson speaks to a 42-year-old man whose internal world is pictureless.

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By Helen Thomson 25 May 2016

Close your eyes and visualise the face of the person you love the most. The colour of their eyes, the texture of their hair, the detail of their skin. Can you http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160524-this-man-had-no-idea-his-mind-is-blind-until-last-week?ocid=global_future_rss

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BBC - Future - This man had no idea his mind is ‘blind’ until last week

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imagine it? Philip can’t. Although Philip, a 42-year old photographer from Toronto, is happily married, he can’t conjure up his wife’s face because he has no images of any kind in his mind’s eye.

. What’s more, studying it is offering new insights into how we all might boost our

increase our

Aphantasia was first discovered in

but has recently attracted much

more attention thanks to a 2015 study by

Some of Zeman’s case studies reported the occasional flash of involuntary imagery during

even though they claimed to not be able to

produce images on demand. The majority also reported problems with , possibly compensating for their lack of imagery by having a tendency to be good at

Philip is a prime example. Wh

BBC - Future - This man had no idea his mind is ‘blind’ until last week

people could see images in their mind... I thought they just meant figuratively

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“When I close my eyes I see my eyelids. It’s just blank,” he says. “I never realised that people could see images in their mind when they were awake. When they said ‘imagine this’ or ‘count sheep’ I thought they just meant figuratively.”

If you are able to generate internal images, it’s very hard to imagine what life is like without them. To understand the blind mind’s eye, it may be helpful to think about an abstract concept such as ‘peace’. There are no obvious – literal – images that are drawn to mind (apart from a metaphorical image like a dove perhaps) yet you are able to understand and imagine what peace is.

When Philip tries to picture a face, he knows intellectually what structures it involves, but he can’t visualise it in any way. “It’s very hard to explain what happens when I think about things like that,” he says. “If I try to picture my father’s face, for example, I would know that he had blue eyes or the size of his nose, but I wouldn’t be able to describe it in any more detail than that – I can’t bring his face to mind. I see nothing.” Picture this To understand the differences in each of our mental images, we have to be able to measure them – but it’s inherently difficult to analyse the private goings on in someone’s mind. Joel Pearson at the University of New South Wales has found the answer: not only can he objectively measure our imagination, but he can manipulate it too.

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"

He does so using “binocular rivalry”. This is a simple

Not only can he objectively measure imagination, but he can manipulate it too

different images – say, green stripes and red spots.

task in which a person is briefly presented with two One image is shown to the left eye, the other image to the right eye. The brain can’t merge the two pictures into one cohesive image, and instead one image gets suppressed outside of our awareness, while the other is perceived. You can manipulate which image is perceived by priming the brain to one or other of the images. You do this by showing one of the images to the person just before the task. That image is then more likely to be perceived when both images are viewed at once.

The same phenomenon happens when you ask a participant to imagine one of the images. This image is then more likely to be perceived in subsequent tasks. And the more vivid your imagination, the more likely you’ll see that same image in the following experiment. Over hundreds of trials, Pearson can use this phenomenon to work out just how good your imagination really is. That explains it Philip only recently discovered that he experienced the world differently after hearing a like ‘what do you mean? People do that?’” He thought it was a joke, so he checked with his four-year old daughter. “I asked her whether she could picture an apple in her mind, she said ‘yeah, it’s green’. I was shocked.” http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160524-this-man-had-no-idea-his-mind-is-blind-until-last-week?ocid=global_future_rss

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Suddenly, so many things in his life made sense. He had always had a notoriously bad memory. “I’m awful at remembering people’s names and faces – but now I know that other people can just picture what everyone looks like then of course that’s why they find it easier to remember that kind of stuff.” He also has trouble finding his car in a car park – probably because he can’t picture where he has left it. “I always have to take a picture of the car or write down a shop that it is near otherwise I spend an hour searching for it.”

In a recent study, Pearson’s team analysed the brain mechanisms at work while someone uses their mind’s eye to produce mental images. They discovered that the size of a person’s visual cortex – the part of the brain responsible for perceiving images – correlated with how strong their mental imagery was. In unpublished work presented at ‘The Eye’s Mind’ conference in Norwich, UK this month, Pearson also described how people have stronger imagery when brain cells in this area are less active. That kind of knowledge allows his team to develop experiments in which they can manipulate the activity of these brain cells using non-invasive brain stimulation to change the strength of a person’s mental imagery.

" It’s easy to imagine how the research could allow people to boost their mental

In doing so, they hope that they might be able to

Maybe we could tone down some of that imagery,” says Pearson. On the other hand, Pearson says it might also be

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160524-this-man-had-no-idea-his-mind-is-blind-until-last-week?ocid=global_future_rss

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imagery

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possible to bump up someone’s visual imagery. “It’s easy to imagine that people might want to boost their mental imagery to improve other aspects of

cognition in which it is involved,” he says.

“In theory, you might be able to manipulate visual imagery to improve eye witness statements, ethical decisions, memory and learning, the list goes on,” says Pearson. But if mental imagery is involved in so many aspects of everyday life, why don’t people like Philip have more trouble? “Although people with strong mental imagery tend to do better in memory tasks,” says Pearson, “people with aphantasia still perform pretty well. They say t If your brain allows you to generate images, he says, then you’ll use them to help you perform certain tasks, and if you don’t, you tend to develop other strategies that can work just as well.

Philip agrees, “I’m sure my brain has compensated in other areas,” he says. For instance, he is great at impersonating other people’s voices. “I can imitate anyone, I can do any kind of accent. I don’t understand why other people find that so hard. I can hear people’s voices in my head as if they’re really speaking. Perhaps that’s one sense making up for another.”

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Here and now A visit to an online forum for people who experience aphantasia quickly reveals that many people with the condition think the trait is beneficial. One user believed that his a The same thing about [the] past,” he says. Others agreed. “ says another. Philip also finds himself focusing more on the present than the past or the future. “I don’t like making plans, I find it difficult to think about the future and forget what I need to do unless I write it down, so I tend to be more spontaneous – I’m very good at working things out on the spot.”

"

Other forum members talk about the benefits o

Some talk about the benefits of not having to relive trauma

“I have watched a girlfriend convulse from an intentional overdose,” said one person, “I am grateful I do not have a visual memory to continue to relive that trauma.” And just as we may struggle to imagine what our

internal world would be like without images, people with aphantasia can struggle to imagine what their world be like with them. One forum user describes how she writes stories in her head for each of her memories or descriptions of things in her life. “Words are a beautiful thing,” she says. “I almost feel sorry for the people replacing those words with images. Sure images are great and all, but I love my words. If I suddenly started picturing images and my need to describe things in my mind diminished, I’d miss it.” http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160524-this-man-had-no-idea-his-mind-is-blind-until-last-week?ocid=global_future_rss

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For Philip, well, he is still taking it all in. “It’s so weird that I never thought of this before,” he says, "that I never realised other people could picture things in their imagination. Why did nobody ever mention that to me? It blows my mind.” Join 600,000+ Future fans by liking us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and Instagram. If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, Travel and Autos, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

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