Visual working memory and visual mental imagery both
involve the use of internal visual representations, and they
likely have overlapping neural substrates. However, research
on people with “aphantasia,” or a lack of visual imagery, has
not found any evidence that aphantasics are impaired on visual
working memory tasks, possibly ...
Visual working memory and visual mental imagery both
involve the use of internal visual representations, and they
likely have overlapping neural substrates. However, research
on people with “aphantasia,” or a lack of visual imagery, has
not found any evidence that aphantasics are impaired on visual
working memory tasks, possibly because they can use nonvisual strategies. We designed a task intended to prevent
compensatory strategies, and also to explore what happens
when aphantasics are required to shift the focus of attention
between items in working memory. We found that aphantasics
were not significantly different from controls, either when
maintaining or shifting the focus of attention. Explanations
include non-visual memory strategies, but also the possibility
that aphantasics can store information in visual working
memory without conscious awareness. Future research should
combine behavioral methods with neuroimaging to investigate
how aphantasics encode working memory representations.