Amount Awarded: $25,000
Mental imagery is often claimed to play a crucial role in cognitive functions such as episodic memory, decision-making, and planning for the future. Our project investigates aphantasia, a condition characterized by reduced or absent mental imagery (Zeman et al., 2015), and aims to uncover how the lack of mental imagery affects other cognitive functions. We aim to further our knowledge of the condition, firstly by using a novel paradigm to replicate findings about episodic memory in aphantasia, and secondly by investigating the temporal neural dynamics of individuals with aphantasia on a battery of well-established EEG tasks.
Previous findings from aphantasia research indicate that not only is imagery disrupted, but episodic memory is too (Bainbridge et al., 2021; Dawes et al., 2022). Specifically, aphantasics recall fewer perceptual details than controls, but a similar amount of spatial details, and exhibit fewer errors of commission. However, these findings come from studies with low ecological validity, and sometimes without the ability to test for the accuracy of recalled memory details. Experiment 1 tests these hypotheses in a new paradigm. Our first aim is to replicate these findings, using a virtual reality paradigm with eye tracking technology, which overcomes previous limitations. Assuming that results are replicated, our second aim is to test whether differences in metacognition could partially explain these results, using a confidence measure, and our third aim is to test whether differences in gaze pattern during encoding could partially explain these results, using eye tracking.
Experiment 2 turns to investigate the understudied area of temporal neural dynamics in aphantasia, using EEG, which has only been studied in a small sample of two subjects (Furman et al., 2023; Zhao et al. 2022). This does not allow for generalisation of results. Our fourth aim is to identify unique neurophysiological traits of aphantasia, using a battery of tests targeting various functions and a large sample of participants. Here, we will also investigate memory encoding and retrieval processes, which could contribute to an explanation of results in Experiment 1. Overall, this project will significantly forward our understanding of behavioural and neural characteristics of aphantasia, which in turn will shed light on the role of imagery in cognition.
Andrea Blomkvist, PhD. Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Philosophy, Logic, and Scientific Method, London School of Economics and Political Science
Katherine Boere, PhD Candidate, Department of Neuroscience, University of Victoria
Em Walsh, PhD. Postdoctoral Scholar, Berman Institute of Bioethics, Johns Hopkins University
Raquel Krempel, PhD. Postdoctoral Scholar, Center for Logic, State University of Campinas, Brazil
Mary Vitello, PhD Candidate, Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles