School of Psychology, 1948University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.
Perception. 2021 Sep;50(9):757-782. doi: 10.1177/03010066211042186. Epub 2021 Aug 31.
People with have impoverished visual imagery so struggle to form mental pictures in the mind's eye. By testing people with and without aphantasia, we investigate the relationship between sensory imagery and sensory sensitivity (i.e., hyper- or hypo-reactivity to incoming signals through the sense organs). In Experiment 1 we first show that people with aphantasia report impaired imagery across domains (e.g., olfactory, gustatory etc.) rather than simply vision. Importantly, we also show that imagery is related to sensory sensitivity: aphantasics reported not only lower imagery, but also lower sensory sensitivity. In Experiment 2, we showed a similar relationship between imagery and sensitivity in the general population. Finally, in Experiment 3 we found behavioural corroboration in a Pattern Glare Task, in which aphantasics experienced less visual discomfort and fewer visual distortions typically associated with sensory sensitivity. Our results suggest for the very first time that sensory imagery and sensory sensitivity are related, and that aphantasics are characterised by both lower imagery, and lower sensitivity. Our results also suggest that aphantasia (absence of imagery) may be more accurately defined as a subtype of a broader imagery deficit we name , in which weak or absent imagery occurs across multiple senses.
具有 的人视觉意象贫困，因此难以在脑海中形成心理图像。通过测试有和没有 的人，我们调查了感觉意象和感觉敏感性（即对通过感觉器官传入的信号的超敏或低敏反应）之间的关系。在实验 1 中，我们首先表明，有 的人报告说，在嗅觉、味觉等多个领域的图像感知受损，而不仅仅是视觉。重要的是，我们还表明，意象与感觉敏感性有关：有 的人不仅报告说图像感知较低，而且感觉敏感性也较低。在实验 2 中，我们在普通人群中也发现了类似的图像和敏感性之间的关系。最后，在实验 3 中，我们在模式眩光任务中发现了行为上的佐证，在该任务中，有 的人经历的视觉不适和通常与感觉敏感性相关的视觉扭曲较少。我们的研究结果首次表明，感觉意象和感觉敏感性是相关的，而且有 的人具有较低的图像感知和较低的敏感性。我们的研究结果还表明， （缺乏视觉意象）可能更准确地定义为我们称之为 的更广泛的意象缺陷的一种亚型，其中在多个感觉中出现较弱或不存在的意象。
