A Systematic Review of Aphantasia: Concept, Measurement, Neural Basis, and Theory Development

Jin, Hsu & Li (2024) -- peer-reviewed paper, National Library of Medicine

This one tries to pull together everything researchers know so far about aphantasia -- how it's defined, how it's measured, and what's happening in the brain. It's the kind of paper that steps back and says "okay, what do we actually know?" Which turns out to be less than you'd hope.

The researchers go through a ton of studies and basically find that the field is still a mess in the best possible way. Everyone's measuring things differently, the definitions are fuzzy, and the theories are still being argued about. But that's actually useful to know. It means anyone working with kids who have aphantasia is doing so without a complete playbook. The science is catching up to the people.

If you remember one thing: We don't fully understand aphantasia yet!

Link to study