The DOI matches its Crossref record; 60 of the 60 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The prevalence of aphantasia (imagery weakness) in the general population
Open accessAbstract
Visual mental imagery is the ability to create a quasi-perceptual visual picture in the mind's eye. For people with the rare trait of aphantasia, this ability is entirely absent or markedly impaired. Here, we aim to clarify the prevalence of aphantasia in the general population, while overcoming limitations of previous research (e.g., recruitment biases). In Experiment 1, we screened a cohort of undergraduate students (n502) using the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (Marks, 1973) and found that 4.2% had aphantasia. To establish the reliability of our estimate, we then screened a new sample of people (n502) at an online crowdsourcing marketplace, again finding that approximately four percent (3.6%) had aphantasia. Overall, our combined prevalence from over a thousand people of 3.9% - which shows no gender bias - provides a useful index for how commonly aphantasia occurs, based on measures and diagnostic thresholds in line with contemporary aphantasia literature.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“There is no apparent gender bias in aphantasia”
From Aphantasia and hyperphantasia: exploring imagery vividness extremes (2024) · cites this paper as [32]
In the citing paper
“These studies suggest that ~1% of the population experiences profound aphantasia and have the lowest possible VVIQ score (16/80)”
From Aphantasia and hyperphantasia: exploring imagery vividness extremes (2024) · cites this paper as [32]
In the citing paper
“whereas 2–6% experience imagery that is at best 'vague and dim', and have VVIQ scores of 32/80 or less”
From Aphantasia and hyperphantasia: exploring imagery vividness extremes (2024) · cites this paper as [32]
Citations
Cites
R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing
R Core Team (2000) · doi:10.32614/r.manuals · Cited by 355,893
Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive–developmental inquiry
Flavell, J. H. (1979) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/0003-066x.34.10.906 · Cited by 11,282 · cited 2×
“Some have suggested that impairments in visual imagery are nothing more than deficits in metacognition (i.e., the ability to introspect accurately about our thoughts; Flavell, 1979).”
BackgroundBaron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Skinner, R., Martin, J., & Clubley, E. (2001) · Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders · doi:10.1023/a:1005653411471 · Cited by 6,450 · cited 2×
“(2021) found that people with aphantasia also share these latter two nonclinical autistic traits (AQ; Baron-Cohen et al., 2001), having specific weaknesses in imagination, and social skills.”
BackgroundUsing Bayes to get the most out of non-significant results
Dienes, Z. (2014) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00781 · Cited by 1,998
VISUAL IMAGERY DIFFERENCES IN THE RECALL OF PICTURES
MARKS, D. F. (1973) · British Journal of Psychology · doi:10.1111/j.2044-8295.1973.tb01322.x · Cited by 1,778
Casler, K., Bickel, L., & Hackett, E. (2013) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2013.05.009 · Cited by 1,662
BayesFactor: Computation of Bayes Factors for Common Designs
Morey, R. D., & Rouder, J. N. (2012) · doi:10.32614/cran.package.bayesfactor · Cited by 1,220
Mental Imagery: Functional Mechanisms and Clinical Applications
Pearson, J., Naselaris, T., Holmes, E. A., & Kosslyn, S. M. (2015) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2015.08.003 · Cited by 1,087
Conducting Clinical Research Using Crowdsourced Convenience Samples
Chandler, J., & Shapiro, D. (2016) · Annual Review of Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-021815-093623 · Cited by 1,072
Lives without imagery – Congenital aphantasia
Zeman, A., Dewar, M., & Della Sala, S. (2015) · Cortex · doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2015.05.019 · Cited by 621
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Aphantasia and hyperphantasia: exploring imagery vividness extremes
Zeman, A. (2024) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2024.02.007 · Cited by 148
Visual mental imagery in typical imagers and in aphantasia: A millimeter-scale 7-T fMRI study
Liu, J., Zhan, M., Hajhajate, D., Spagna, A., Dehaene, S., Cohen, L., & Bartolomeo, P. (2025) · Cortex · doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2025.01.013 · Cited by 94
Liu, J., & Bartolomeo, P. (2023) · Cortex · doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2023.06.003 · Cited by 74
Visual imagery vividness declines across the lifespan
Gulyás, E., Gombos, F., Sütöri, S., Lovas, A., Ziman, G., & Kovács, I. (2022) · Cortex · doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2022.06.011 · Cited by 72
Sensory representations in primary visual cortex are not sufficient for subjective imagery
Cabbai, G., Racey, C., Simner, J., Dance, C., Ward, J., & Forster, S. (2024) · Current Biology · doi:10.1016/j.cub.2024.09.062 · Cited by 76
Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Dance, C. J., Ipser, A., & Simner, J.
- Affiliations
- University of Sussex (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Dance, C.J.
- Venue
- Consciousness and Cognition
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2022-01
- Volume
- 97
- Pages
- 103243
- ISSN
- 1053-8100 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4200352128
- Cited by
- 167
- References
- 60
- Citations by year
- 2026: 45 · 2025: 45 · 2024: 37 · 2023: 29 · 2022: 10
- FWCI
- 10.13
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- sro.sussex.ac.uk
- Licence
- Locations
- Consciousness and Cognition (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Sussex Research Online (University of Sussex) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007–2013)
- European Research Council (617678)
- Leverhulme Trust
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Keywords
- aphantasia, visual imagery, prevalence, Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire, undergraduate students, crowdsourcing, gender differences, recruitment bias, general population
- MeSH terms
- Humans, Imagination, Surveys and Questionnaires, Visual Perception, Reproducibility of Results, Prevalence, Imagery, Psychotherapy
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
