Task Evoked EEG Reveals Neural Processing Differences in Aphantasia

Boere et al. (2025). Peer-reviewed paper, Scientific Reports, Universities of Victoria and Glasgow

This is the first study to hook up a group of people with aphantasia to an EEG and actually watch their brains work during attention and memory tasks. Sixty-two people with aphantasia, fifty-nine without, doing the same cognitive tasks while brain activity was recorded in real time. The question was whether the brains would look different even when the performance looked the same.

They do.

People with aphantasia showed smaller P300 responses, which is the brain's signal for paying attention and updating working memory, and lower delta wave activity when the memory tasks got harder.

But here's the kicker: both groups got the same scores on every task. Same accuracy, same reaction times.

The aphantasic brain just got there differently, probably using verbal or semantic strategies instead of visual ones, which turns out to need less heavy-duty brainwork to block out distractions. The researchers are clear that this is not a deficit. It's a different route to the same destination.

If you remember one thing: The aphantasic brain processes information differently than a typical brain, and different is doing just fine.

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