What is aphantasia
Aphantasia is the absence of sensory and visual awareness.
Scientists described this feature of the brain quite recently: the discovery of such a phenomenon prompted them to reconsider their views on a phenomenon that we so often take for granted.
In addition, scientists continue to study thisphenomenon to open up new opportunities for developing their visualization abilities that can help strengthen memory, increase empathy, and also provide the basis for the development of new ways to treat addiction and anxiety conditions.
How aphantasia was discovered in humans
Aphantasia was first diagnosed in 1880year: British encyclopedist Francis Galton published an article with the results of a survey of one hundred people of both sexes. The scientist sent out questionnaires and asked, before answering, to remember how they sat at the table during breakfast that morning.
During this work, he discovered a man who suddenly lost his visual memory and dreams in the form of pictures. Charcot attributed this to mental illness.
Later, during a more detailed study of the phenomenon, American neuroscientist Martha Farah described a disturbance in mental vision, which was often accompanied by a loss of the ability to recognize faces.
At the same time, some blind patients do wellperformed visual tests: they correctly answered questions about the shape of letters, the colors of objects, the angles of the clock hands. All of this has helped scientists understand how the brain processes and creates visual information.
Afantasia is a malfunction of the brain or just its peculiarity
Unfortunately, there is still no clear answer to this question.this question is not allowed. As stated by the psychiatrist-narcologist, chairman of e. V. “Medizin 4.0” Mikhail Teyushkin, aphantasia cannot be called a pathology - most often it is a developmental feature. According to people's stories, they have had this trait since childhood - they just didn't pay attention to it before. This is an innate specificity of perception.
There are no reasons for the appearance of aphantasia ifречь идет о психически здоровом человеке. В некоторых случаях это признак шизотипического расстройства, однако сам по себе такой симптом не служит основанием для постановки психиатрического диагноза.
In June 2020, a study was released in whichthe authors argue that aphantasia is associated not only with the inability to visualize visual images, but also with other important thought processes such as memory. During the study, 667 people were interviewed, 267 of whom independently diagnosed aphantasia.
Volunteers were asked to take a test calledVividness of Visual Imagery, in which you had to rate how vivid some memories were on a scale of 1 to 5. One point corresponded to the level “I do not see the image / picture, but I only know that I remember this event. The participants chose five points if they saw the memory as if in reality, here and now.
People with aphantasia reported after the test that they did notonly they could not imagine the proposed events, for example, dawn, but they also had difficulty remembering the last time they were able to observe this event. These experiment participants also noted a reduced ability to imagine the future and dream. Thus, any cognitive function based on the ability to recall visual images in people with aphantasia may be reduced.
How many Afantas in the world
Scientists estimate that between one and three percent of humanity are aphantasts. And some - from birth. Having learned about this as adults, they were sincerely surprised that it could be different.
And there are also their opposites - people with too bright inner vision, or hyper-fantasists.
Signs of aphantasia
Typically, aphantasists do not dream and have difficulty remembering people’s faces, and sometimes they also have autism spectrum disorders. However, the data is not enough to make a generalization.
To understand how the brain worksaphantastists, Joel Parson, scientists from the Australian University of New South Wales, asked volunteers to imagine a white triangle and monitored their pupils. For ordinary people they narrowed, but for aphantasts they did not change.
He also measured the electrical conductivity of the skin while reading scary stories. And again, the control group showed an increase, while the Afantists did not.
Afantast communities
In 2016, Firefox co-creator Blake Rosswrote on Facebook: “I just learned something about myself and it blew my mind.” This is how he commented on his aphantasia. The Aphantasia network was even created to communicate with such people.
На форуме участники могут обсуждать разные плюсы his peculiarities of the brain, for example, such a person does not have to re-experience the psychological trauma he has suffered or to keep in his memory images of terrible or sad moments of his life.
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