A new study published in Consciousness and Cognition has revealed that individuals with aphantasia, a condition where people cannot form mental visual images, experience storytelling in a markedly different way than those with typical mental imagery. While aphantasics enjoy stories as much as their peers, they report less emotional engagement and find it harder to immerse themselves in the world of the story.
For most people, visual imagery plays a significant role in how we process language, especially when reading narratives. Vivid descriptions in a book often trigger mental images that enhance the reading experience, allowing readers to visualize settings, characters, and events as if they were watching a movie in their mind. This mental imagery not only adds richness to the storytelling experience but also aids emotional engagement, making readers feel more connected to the characters and events in the story.
However, individuals with the rare condition of aphantasia lack the ability to visualize mental images. They cannot “see” things in their mind’s eye, even when reading vivid descriptions. Despite this, many aphantasics live much of their lives unaware that their cognitive experience differs from others, as they often develop alternative ways to process information.
Previous research has highlighted the importance of visual imagery in language comprehension and emotional engagement with narratives. To better understand how aphantasia alters the experience of reading fiction, a research group based at Radboud University in the Netherlands sought to explore this difference in depth. The researchers aimed to investigate whether aphantasics would have a fundamentally different reading experience compared to individuals with typical visual imagery, particularly in areas like emotional connection and immersion in the story.
Led by Laura Speed, the research team recruited 47 individuals with aphantasia and 51 control participants with typical visual imagery. Recruitment was done online via platforms like Reddit and Facebook, where specific communities for aphantasia exist. Participants were asked to read a short story titled My Dead by Peter Orner, a third-person narrative that explores themes of human connection and near-death experiences. The story was selected for its descriptive content, which the researchers believed would engage the participants’ visual imagination.
After reading the story, participants completed several questionnaires designed to measure different aspects of their reading experience. These included their overall enjoyment of the story, their emotional engagement with the characters, and how absorbed they felt in the world of the narrative. The questionnaires also explored which elements of the story—such as scenery, character actions, or dialogue—captured the participants’ attention.
The results demonstrated that individuals with aphantasia were less likely to become emotionally engaged with the story or absorbed in its world. They also reported a lower level of attention to elements like the story’s scenery and character actions, and were also less likely to sympathize with or feel connected to the characters in the story.
Interestingly, despite their reduced emotional engagement, there was no significant difference between the two groups regarding their overall appreciation of the story. Aphantasics and control participants rated the story similarly in terms of how much they liked it.
Notably, both groups reported reading a similar number of books per year, and their preferred genres, such as fantasy and science fiction, were closely aligned. Aphantasics did however report consuming more fiction and non-fiction through other media like television, movies, and video games, compared to the control group. “This could reflect a preference for added visual stimulation, which might compensate for their reduced visual imagery,” the authors noted.
Speed and colleagues concluded that, “aphantasics and controls did differ in their experience of the story, which supports a role for mental imagery or mental simulation in story reading. But, since overall liking did not differ between the two groups, nor did recall of the story, this suggests that mental imagery or mental simulation is not critical for comprehending a story.”
A limitation of the study is that it was conducted online, which may limit its generalizability to real-world experiences of reading books. Additionally, the researchers note that aphantasia likely varies from person to person, where the condition could be global (affecting all sensory modalities) whereas others have aphantasia affecting only one or some sensory modalities, and that this could have affected the analyses.
The study, “The Role of Visual Imagery in Story Reading: Evidence from Aphantasia,” was authored by Laura J. Speed, Lynn S. Eekhof, and Marloes Mak.
