CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 17Memory Processes and InfluencesDeception detection and forensic psychologyCognitive Functions and Memory

Real-world implications of aphantasia: episodic recall of eyewitnesses with aphantasia is less complete but no less accurate than typical imagers

Open access
Dando, Coral J., Nahouli, Zacharia, Hart, Alison, Pounder, Zoe·2023·Royal Society Open Science
DOI 10.1098/rsos.231007PMC PMC10598423
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Individuals with aphantasia report an inability to voluntarily visually image and reduced episodic memory, yet episodic accounts provided by witnesses and victims are fundamental for criminal justice. Using the mock-witness paradigm, we investigated eyewitness memory of individuals with aphantasia versus typical imagers. Participants viewed a mock crime and 48 hours later were interviewed about the event, randomly allocated to one of three conditions. Two interview conditions included techniques designed to support episodic retrieval mode, namely (i) Mental Reinstatement of Context (MRC) and (ii) Sketch Reinstatement of Context (Sketch-RC). A third Control condition did not include retrieval support. Aphantasic mock-eyewitnesses recalled 30% less correct information and accounts were less complete, but they made no more errors and were as accurate as typical imagers. Interaction effects revealed reduced correct recall and less complete accounts for aphantasic participants in MRC interviews versus Sketch-RC and Control. Aphantaisic participants in the Control outperformed those in both the Sketch-RC and MRC, although Sketch-RC improved completeness by 15% versus MRC. Our pattern of results indicates reduced mental imagery ability might be compensated for by alternative self-initiated cognitive strategies. Findings offer novel insights into episodic recall performance in information gathering interviews when ability to voluntarily visualize is impoverished.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1098/rsos.231007

Cites

12 of 12 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

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?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 77

  1. [1]Tulving E. 2002 Episodic memory: from mind to brain. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 53, 1- 25. (10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135114) 11752477 · DOI · Paper page
  2. [2]Tulving E. 2005 Episodic Memory and Autonoesis: Uniquely Human? In The missing link in cognition: origins of self-reflective consciousness (eds HS Terrace, J Metcalfe), pp. 3- 56. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
  3. [3]Klein SB, Loftus J, Kihlstrom JF. 2002 Memory and temporal experience: the effects of episodic memory loss on an amnesic patient's ability to remember the past and imagine the future. Social Cogn. 20, 353- 379. (10.1521/soco.20.5.353.21125) · DOI · Paper page
  4. [5]Tulving E. 1983 Ecphoric processes in episodic memory. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 302, 361- 371. (10.1098/rstb.1983.0060) · DOI
  5. [8]Rubin DC, Schrauf RW, Greenberg DL. 2003 Belief and recollection of autobiographical memories. Mem. Cognit. 31, 887- 901. (10.3758/BF03196443) 14651297 · DOI · Paper page
  6. [10]Pearson J, Naselaris T, Holmes EA, Kosslyn SM. 2015 Mental Imagery: functional mechanisms and clinical applications. Trends Cogn. Sci. 19, 590- 602. (10.1016/j.tics.2015.08.003) 26412097 PMC4595480 · DOI · Paper page
  7. [11]Hyman Jr IE, Loftus EF. 2002 False childhood memories and eyewitness memory errors. In Memory and suggestibility in the forensic interview (eds ML Eisen, JA Quas, GS Goodman), pp. 63- 84. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
  8. [12]Loftus EF, Greenspan RL. 2017 If I'm certain, is iIt true? Accuracy and confidence in eyewitness memory. Psychol. Sci. Public Interest 18, 1- 2. (10.1177/1529100617699241) 28395653 · DOI
  9. [13]Wells GL, Olson EA. 2003 Eyewitness testimony. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 54, 277- 295. (10.1146/annurev.psych.54.101601.145028) 12209024 · DOI
  10. [15]Tomes JL, Katz AN. 1997 Habitual susceptibility to misinformation and individual differences in eyewitness memory. Appl. Cogn. Psychol. 11, 233- 251. (10.1002/(SICI)1099-0720(199706)11:3<233::AID-ACP447>3.0.CO;2-V) · DOI
  11. [16]Hennings AC, McClay M, Lewis-Peacock JA, Dunsmoor JE. 2019 Contextual reinstatement promotes extinction generalization in healthy adults but not PTSD. Neuropsychologia 147, 107573. (10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107573) PMC7554263 32735802 · DOI
  12. [17]Polyn SM, Norman KA, Kahana MJ. 2009 A context maintenance and retrieval model of organizational processes in free recall. Psychol. Rev. 116, 129- 156. (10.1037/a0014420) 19159151 PMC2630591 · DOI · Paper page
  13. [18]Polyn SM, Natu VS, Cohen JD, Norman KA. 2005 Category-specific cortical activity precedes retrieval during memory search. Science 310, 1963- 1966. (10.1126/science.1117645) 16373577 · DOI · Paper page
  14. [19]Smith SM, Vela E. 2001 Environmental context-dependent memory: a review and meta-analysis. Psychon. Bull. Rev. 8, 203- 220. (10.3758/BF03196157) 11495110 · DOI · Paper page
  15. [20]Monzel M, Mitchell D, Macpherson F, Pearson J, Zeman A. 2022 Proposal for a consistent definition of aphantasia and hyperphantasia: a response to Lambert and Sibley (2022) and Simner and Dance (2022). Cortex 152, 74- 76. (10.1016/j.cortex.2022.04.003) 35537235 · DOI
  16. [21]Marks DF. 1973 Visual imagery differences in the recall of pictures. Br. J. Psychol. 64, 17- 24. (10.1111/j.2044-8295.1973.tb01322.x) 4742442 · DOI · Paper page
  17. [22]Zeman A, Dewar M, Della Sala S. 2015 Lives without imagery: congenital aphantasia. Cortex 73, 378- 380. (10.1016/j.cortex.2015.05.019) 26115582 · DOI · Paper page
  18. [24]Brosch R. 2018 What we ‘see’ when we read: visualization and vividness in reading fictional narratives. Cortex 105, 135- 143. (10.1016/j.cortex.2017.08.020) 28916259 · DOI
  19. [25]Just MA, Newman SD, Keller TA, McEleney A, Carpenter PA. 2004 Imagery in sentence comprehension: an fMRI study. Neuroimage 21, 112- 124. (10.1016/j.neuroimage.2003.08.042) 14741648 · DOI
  20. [29]Pounder Z, Jacob J, Evans S, Loveday C, Eardley AF, Silvanto J. 2021 Only minimal differences between individuals with congenital aphantasia and those with typical imagery on neuropsychological tasks that involve imagery. Cortex 148, 180- 192. (10.1016/j.cortex.2021.12.010) 35180481 · DOI · Paper page
  21. [30]Milton F, Fulford J, Dance C, Gaddum J, Heuerman-Williamson B, Jones K, Zeman A. 2021 Behavioral and neural signatures of visual imagery vividness extremes: aphantasia versus hyperphantasia. Cereb. cortex commun. 2, tgab035. (10.1093/texcom/tgab035) 34296179 PMC8186241 · DOI
  22. [31]Zeman A, Milton F, Della Sala S, Dewar M, Frayling T, Gaddum J, Winlove C. 2020 Phantasia: the psychological significance of lifelong visual imagery vividness extremes. Cortex 130, 426- 440. (10.1016/j.cortex.2020.04.003) 32446532 · DOI · Paper page
  23. [32]Wicken M, Keogh R, Pearson J. 2021 The critical role of mental imagery in human emotion: insights from fear-based imagery and aphantasia. Proc. R. Soc. B 288, 20210267. (10.1098/rspb.2021.0267) PMC7944105 33715433 · DOI · Paper page
  24. [33]Kay L, Keogh R, Andrillon T, Pearson J. 2022 The pupillary light response as a physiological index of aphantasia, sensory and phenomenological imagery strength. ELife 11, e72484. (10.7554/eLife.72484) 35356890 PMC9018072 · DOI · Paper page
  25. [34]Conway MA, Pleydell-Pearce CW. 2000 The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system. Psychol. Rev. 107, 261- 288. (10.1037/0033-295X.107.2.261) 10789197 · DOI · Paper page
  26. [35]Bramão I, Reis A, Petersson KM, Faísca L. 2011 The role of color information on object recognition: a review and meta-analysis. Acta psychologica 138, 244- 253. (10.1016/j.actpsy.2011.06.010) 21803315 · DOI
  27. [37]Faber P, Nielsen NP, Berntsen D. 2023 Effects of mental context reinstatement on accuracy and recollective experience. Appl. Cogn. Psychol. 37, 1004- 1015, (10.1002/acp.4097) · DOI
  28. [38]Dando C, Wilcock R, Behnkle C, Milne R. 2011 Modifying the cognitive interview: countenancing forensic application by enhancing practicability. Psychol. Crime Law 17, 491- 511. (10.1080/10683160903334212) · DOI
  29. [39]Dando C, Wilcock R, Milne R. 2009 The cognitive interview: the efficacy of a modified mental reinstatement of context procedure for frontline police investigators. Appl. Cogn. Psychol. 23, 138- 147. (10.1002/acp.1451) · DOI
  30. [40]Dando C, Wilcock R, Milne R, Henry L. 2009 An adapted cognitive interview procedure for frontline police investigators. Appl. Cogn. Psychol. 23, 698- 716. (10.1002/acp.1501) · DOI
  31. [41]Dando CJ. 2013 Drawing to remember: external support of older adults' eyewitness performance. PLoS ONE 8, e69937. (10.1371/journal.pone.0069937) 23922863 PMC3726749 · DOI
  32. [42]Dando CJ, Gabbert F, Hope L. 2020 Supporting older eyewitnesses’ episodic memory: the self-administered interview and sketch reinstatement of context. Memory 28, 712- 723. (10.1080/09658211.2020.1757718) 32459141 · DOI
  33. [43]Mattison M, Dando CJ, Ormerod TC. 2018 Drawing the answers: sketching to support free and probed recall by child witnesses and victims with autism spectrum disorder. Autism 22, 181- 194. (10.1177/1362361316669088) 29490481 · DOI
  34. [44]Mattison ML, Dando CJ, Ormerod TC. 2015 Sketching to remember: episodic free recall task support for child witnesses and victims with autism spectrum disorder. J. Autism Dev. Disord. 45, 1751- 1765. (10.1007/s10803-014-2335-z) 25503484 · DOI
  35. [45]Dando CJ, Geiselman RE, MacLeod N, Griffiths A. 2015 Interviewing adult witnesses and victims. In Communication in investigative and legal contexts (eds G Oxburgh, T Myklebust, T Grant, R Milne), pp. 79- 106. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
  36. [46]Tulving E, Thomson DM. 1973 Encoding specificity and retrieval processes in episodic memory. Psychol. Rev. 80, 352- 373. (10.1037/h0020071) · DOI · Paper page
  37. [47]Bramao I, Karlsson A, Johansson M. 2017 Mental reinstatement of encoding context improves episodic remembering. Cortex 94, 15- 26. (10.1016/j.cortex.2017.06.007) 28710908 · DOI
  38. [48]Murnane K, Phelps M, Malmberg K. 2000 Context-dependent recognition memory: the ICE theory. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 128, 403- 415. (10.1037/0096-3445.128.4.403) 10650581 · DOI
  39. [49]Marian V, Neisser U. 2000 Language-dependent recall of autobiographical memories. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 129, 361. (10.1037/0096-3445.129.3.361) 11006905 · DOI
  40. [50]Lewis PA, Critchley HD. 2003 Mood-dependent memory. Trends Cogn. Sci. 7, 431- 433. (10.1016/j.tics.2003.08.005) 14550485 · DOI
  41. [51]Gwyer P, Clifford BR, Dritschel B. 1998 The effects of the cognitive interview on recall, recognition and the confidence/accuracy relationship. In Psychology and criminal justice (eds B János, M Iván, S Márton), pp. 53- 60. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter.
  42. [52]Memon A, Bruce V. 1985 Context effects in episodic studies of verbal and facial memory: a review. Curr. Psychol. Res. Rev. 4, 349- 369. (10.1007/BF02686589) · DOI
  43. [53]Bangs K, Smith-Spark JH. 2020 Mental reinstatement of context: do individual differences in mental time travel and eyewitness occupation influence eyewitness performance over different delay intervals? J. Investig. Psychol. Offender Profiling 17, 31- 45. (10.1002/jip.1536) · DOI
  44. [54]Cutler BL, Penrod SD, Martens TK. 1987 The reliability of eyewitness identification: the role of system and estimator variables. Law Hum. Behav. 11, 223- 258. (10.1007/BF01044644) · DOI
  45. [55]Emmett D, Clifford B, Gwyer P. 2003 An investigation of the interaction between cognitive style and context reinstatment on the memory performance of eyewitnesses. Pers. Individ. Differ. 34, 1495- 1508. (10.1016/S0191-8869(02)00131-9) · DOI
  46. [56]Dietze PM, Thomason DM. 1993 Mental reinstatement of context: a technique for interviewing child witnesses. Appl. Cogn. Psychol. 7, 97- 108. (10.1002/acp.2350070203) · DOI
  47. [57]Ministry of Justice. 2022 Achieving Best Evidence in Criminal Proceedings: Guidance on Interviewing Victims and Witnesses, and Guidance on Using Special Measures. See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/achieving-best-evidence-in-criminal-proceedings.
  48. [58]Jacobs C, Schwarzkopf DS, Silvanto J. 2018 Visual working memory performance in aphantasia. Cortex 105, 61- 73. (10.1016/j.cortex.2017.10.014) 29150139 · DOI · Paper page
  49. [59]Lee SH, Kravitz DJ, Baker CI. 2012 Disentangling visual imagery and perception of real-world objects. Neuroimage 59, 4064- 4073. (10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.10.055) 22040738 PMC3288657 · DOI · Paper page
  50. [60]Favila SE, Lee H, Kuhl BA. 2020 Transforming the concept of memory reactivation. Trends Neurosci. 43, 939- 950. (10.1016/j.tins.2020.09.006) 33041061 PMC7688497 · DOI
  51. [61]Bowler DM, Gaigg SB, Gardiner JM. 2008 Effects of related and unrelated context on recall and recognition by adults with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder. Neuropsychologia 46, 993- 999. (10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.12.004) 18243253 · DOI
  52. [62]Colcombe S, Kramer AF. 2003 Fitness effects on the cognitive function of older adults: a meta-analytic study. Psychol. Sci. 14, 125- 130. (10.1111/1467-9280.t01-1-01430) 12661673 · DOI · Paper page
  53. [63]Ballesteros S, Mayas J. 2009 Preserved cross-modal priming and aging: a summary of current thoughts. Acta Psychol. Sin. 41, 1063- 1074. (10.3724/SP.J.1041.2009.01063) · DOI
  54. [64]Dando C, Taylor DA, Caso A, Nahouli Z, Adam C. 2023 Interviewing in virtual environments: towards understanding the impact of rapport-building behaviours and retrieval context on eyewitness memory. Mem. Cognit. 51, 404- 421. (10.3758/s13421-022-01362-7) PMC9575624 36251160 · DOI
  55. [65]Nahouli Z, Dando CJ, Mackenzie J-M, Aresti A. 2021 Rapport building and witness memory: actions may ‘speak’ louder than words. PloS ONE 16, e0256084. (10.1371/journal.pone.0256084) 34388182 PMC8362973 · DOI
  56. [66]Vallano J, Compo N. 2011 A comfortable witness is a good witness: rapport-building and susceptibility to misinformation in an investigative mock-crime interview. Appl. Cogn. Psychol. 25, 960- 970. (10.1002/acp.1789) · DOI
  57. [67]Rubin DC, Burt CD, Fifield SJ. 2003 Experimental manipulations of the phenomenology of memory. Mem. Cognit. 31, 877- 886. (10.3758/BF03196442) 14651296 · DOI
  58. [68]Palombo DJ, Alain C, Söderlund H, Khuu W, Levine B. 2015 Severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM) in healthy adults: a new mnemonic syndrome. Neuropsychologia 72, 105- 118. (10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.04.012) 25892594 · DOI · Paper page
  59. [69]Howard MW, Kahana MJ. 2002 A distributed representation of temporal context. J. Math. Psychol. 46, 269- 299. (10.1006/jmps.2001.1388) · DOI · Paper page
  60. [70]Yonelinas AP, Ranganath C, Ekstrom AD, Wiltgen BJ. 2019 A contextual binding theory of episodic memory: systems consolidation reconsidered. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 20, 364- 375. (10.1038/s41583-019-0150-4) 30872808 PMC7233541 · DOI
  61. [71]Gustafsson PU, Lindholm T, Jönsson FU. 2019 Predicting Accuracy in Eyewitness Testimonies With Memory Retrieval Effort and Confidence. Front. Psychol. 10, 703. (10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00703) 30984087 PMC6450142 · DOI
  62. [72]Paz-Alonso P, Goodman G, Ibabe I. 2013 Adult eyewitness memory and compliance: effects of post-event misinformation on memory for a negative event. Behav. Sci. Law 31, 541- 558. (10.1002/bsl.2081) 24022799 · DOI
  63. [73]Gudjonsson GH. 2010 Psychological vulnerabilities during police interviews: why are they important? Legal Criminol. Psychol. 15, 161- 175. (10.1348/135532510X500064) · DOI
  64. [74]McGroarty A, Baxter JS. 2007 Interrogative pressure in simulated forensic interviews: the effects of negative feedback. Br. J. Psychol. 98, 455- 465. (10.1348/000712606X147510) 17535467 · DOI
  65. [75]Dando CJ, Ormerod TC, Wilcock R, Milne R. 2011 When help becomes hindrance: unexpected errors of omission and commission in eyewitness memory resulting from change temporal order at retrieval? Cognition 121, 416- 421. (10.1016/j.cognition.2011.06.015) 21861997 · DOI
  66. [77]Keogh R, Pearson J, Zeman A. 2021 Aphantasia: the science of visual imagery extremes. Handb. Clin. Neurol. 178, 277- 296. (10.1016/B978-0-12-821377-3.00012-X) 33832681 · DOI
  67. [79]Fleur DS, Bredeweg B, van den Bos W. 2021 Metacognition: ideas and insights from neuro- and educational sciences. NPJ Sci. Learn. 6, 13. (10.1038/s41539-021-00089-5) 34103531 PMC8187395 · DOI
  68. [80]Tekcan Aİ, Yılmaz E, Kaya Kızılöz B, Karadöller DZ, Mutafoğlu M, Aktan Erciyes A. 2015 Retrieval and phenomenology of autobiographical memories in blind individuals. Memory 23, 329- 339. (10.1080/09658211.2014.886702) 24528249 · DOI
  69. [81]Brewer N, Weber N, Wootton D, Lindsay DS. 2012 Identifying the bad guy in a lineup using confidence judgments under deadline pressure. Psychol. Sci. 23, 1208- 1214. (10.1177/0956797612441217) 22933457 · DOI
  70. [82]Pansky A, Goldsmith M, Koriat A, Pearlman-Avnion S. 2009 Memory accuracy in old age: cognitive, metacognitive, and neurocognitive determinants. Eur. J. Cogn. Psychol. 21, 303- 329. (10.1080/09541440802281183) · DOI
  71. [83]Wong JT, Cramer SJ, Gallo DA. 2012 Age-related reduction of the confidence–accuracy relationship in episodic memory: effects of recollection quality and retrieval monitoring. Psychol. Aging 27, 1053. (10.1037/a0027686) 22449027 PMC3387520 · DOI
  72. [85]Van Meter P, Firetto CM. 2013 Cognitive model of drawing construction. In Learning through visual displays (eds G Schraw, MT McCrudden, D Robinson), pp. 247- 280. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
  73. [86]Geiselman RE, Fisher RP. 2014 Interviewing witnesses and victims. In Investigative interviewing: handbook of best practices (eds M St-Yves, A Griffiths), pp. 1- 21. Toronto, Canada: Carswell.
  74. [87]Hoogesteyn K, Meijer E, Vrij A. 2020 Examining witness interviewing environments. J. Investig. Psychol. Offender Profiling 17, 238- 249. (10.1002/jip.1549) · DOI
  75. [88]Fisher RP, Schreiber N. 2017 Interview protocols to improve eyewitness memory. In Handbook of eyewitness psychology. Vol. I, Memory for events (eds MP Toglia, JD Read, DF Ross, RCL Lindsay). London, UK: Psychology Press.
  76. [90]Primbs MA, Pennington CR, Lakens D, Silan MAA, Lieck DS, Forscher PS, Westwood SJ. 2023 Are small effects the indispensable foundation for a cumulative psychological science? A reply to Götz et al. (2022). Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 18, 508- 512. (10.1177/17456916221100420) 36126652 PMC10018048 · DOI
  77. [91]Götz FM, Gosling SD, Rentfrow PJ. 2022 Small effects: the indispensable foundation for a cumulative psychological science. Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 17, 205- 215. (10.1177/1745691620984483) 34213378 · DOI

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Dando, C. J., Nahouli, Z., Hart, A., & Pounder, Z.
Affiliations
  • University of Westminster (GB)
  • University of Derby (GB)
  • Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Corresponding author
Dando, Coral J.
ORCID
Venue
Royal Society Open Science
Publisher
The Royal Society
Published
2023-10
Volume
10
Issue
10
Pages
231007-231007
ISSN
2054-5703 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1098/rsos.231007
PMC
PMC10598423
OpenAlex
W4387941155
Cited by
17
References
12
Citations by year
2026: 9 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 4
FWCI
2.55
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Royal Society Open Science (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • WestminsterResearch (University of Westminster) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Deception detection and forensic psychology
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Functions and Memory
Keywords
aphantasia, mental imagery, eyewitness memory, episodic memory, memory accuracy, cognitive strategies, criminal justice

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