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Aphantasia Club
Research

Sharing to move research forward

We share studies because it has to be done. Research on aphantasia and the spectrum moves forward when the community takes part, and some studies need aphantasic participants. We gather them here and on our social channels so you can write directly to the team.

Since 2021, the association has relayed dozens of studies on aphantasia and the spectrum. Further down, four published results tell what that work has already found, each one with what it does not cover.

Calls for participants

The studies of the moment

The association does not run these protocols and collects no applications. Taking part is decided directly with the team that is recruiting.

Now recruiting

Laboratory for the Study of Cognitive Mechanisms (EMC)

Inner Experience Lab

Université Lumière Lyon 2

The Laboratory for the Study of Cognitive Mechanisms, at Université Lumière Lyon 2, gathers several online experiments on Inner Experience Lab, on inner experience, mental images, the inner voice, and the representation of space. Each experiment states for itself how long it takes.

  • Online
  • Duration, 30 to 50 minutes

Sought profile

  • Online, from home

What it involves

  • Memory for colors, words, and orientations
  • Questionnaires on how emotions feel
  • Processing speed, including a time-limited master’s project
  • Spatial reasoning with colored cubes
  • Quick sorting of words and images, with the University of Pavia
  • Mental representations, with a team in Grenoble
  • Logical reasoning
  • Precision of details in memory
Take part(opens in a new tab)
Now recruiting

Laboratory for the Study of Cognitive Mechanisms (EMC)

Alexithymia, online questionnaires

Université Lumière Lyon 2

The Laboratory for the Study of Cognitive Mechanisms, at Université Lumière Lyon 2, offers a series of online questionnaires on the way people live, manage, and feel their emotions. The session is done from home, in about twenty minutes.

  • Online
  • Duration, 20 minutes
  • Compensation, Unpaid

Sought profile

  • Open to any adult interested in the subject

What it involves

  • Online questionnaires on living with, managing, and feeling emotions
Take part(opens in a new tab)
Now recruiting

Laboratory for the Study of Cognitive Mechanisms (EMC)

Color memory and EEG, in Lyon

Université Lumière Lyon 2 · Lyon (Bron), Porte des Alpes campus

The Laboratory for the Study of Cognitive Mechanisms, at Université Lumière Lyon 2, is recruiting aphantasic people for an on-site session in Bron. The aim is to better understand how color memory is built when thought does not run through images.

  • On site, Lyon (Bron), Porte des Alpes campus
  • Duration, 3 hours
  • Compensation, €30, travel case by case
  • Age, 18 to 35 years old

Sought profile

  • Aphantasic
  • 18 to 35 years old
  • Normal or corrected vision and hearing
  • No color blindness
  • No epilepsy

What it involves

  • Computerized tasks on memory and color perception
  • EEG recording, electrodes on the scalp, without pain or risk
  • One session of about three hours, on site in Bron
Take partFlyer
What we know

What research is starting to know

We read the papers as they come out, and we tell them without overselling. Four results in particular changed the way we talk about this, and for each one we also say, just below, what it does not cover.

  1. Learning by other routes

    To learn, aphantasic students take out of their heads what others visualize: they write lists, organize their courses, repeat out loud, handle objects, or talk about it. Their school results stay comparable to those of their classmates.

    What this does not say

    Comparable does not mean obtained in the same way, or at the same cost in effort and time.

    « These results show that aphantasic students systematically externalize the cognitive processes that phantasic people generally internalize through visualization. »

    Source Cavazos and colleagues (2025), Frontiers in Psychology.

  2. Recognizing without seeing

    When they are asked to recognize a shape or a scene, aphantasic people take more time, but they make as many mistakes as anyone else. They compile a list of features (color, layout, angles) rather than inspecting a mental image.

    What this does not say

    The visual information is there. What is missing is seeing it as an image in the head.

    « They have access to information about shapes, colors, and spatial layouts, but in conscious experience this visual information does not become a visual mental image. »

    Source Liu and Bartolomeo (2023).

  3. Worrying differently

    They are asked to imagine a specific worry, as if it were already happening. They then react less strongly, find it less serious, and live it mostly as a sensation in the body or as an idea, rather than as a film in the head.

    What this does not say

    In daily life they worry just as often as others, simply in another way.

    Source Dance, Meeten and Simner (2025), Behaviour Research and Therapy.

  4. Creating from a desire

    Aphantasic artists, asked about their work, say it all starts with a desire, an energy, an idea, or the feeling that a shape already occupies the space. The work is then looked for on the paper, gesture by gesture.

    What this does not say

    These accounts shed light on ways of working. They do not measure any creative ability.

    « The starting point of aphantasic artists’ work is not a visual image, but a feeling, an emotion, a desire, an energy, thoughts and ideas, or an impression of spatial arrangement. »

    Source Accounts gathered by The Conversation and Psyche.

Do you have a study to share?

We relay the study you send us

When a team writes to us, we read the study, we decide whether it concerns the community around mental imagery, and we publish it here and on our social channels.

Sign-ups, questions, and data stay with you. The association does not sign a partnership, and the ethics review stays yours.

aphantasiaclub@gmail.comWrite to the association

What we need

  • Who you are

    The title of the study, the team, and mention of an ethics opinion when there is one.

  • What the session asks

    The place or the link, the duration, the compensation, and the profile sought, precise enough that a person knows whether they can come.

  • How people reach you

    A contact for interested people, plus the flyer if there is one, so they write directly to the team.

Take part continuously

Answering A-Quest also helps research

The questionnaire of the association and of the A-Quest consortium stays open throughout the year. At the end, you get an indicative summary of how your mind works, enough to learn a little about how you imagine, remember, and think.

No name or email is asked for. The answers are compiled for the consortium’s work, and researchers use them. Taking the questionnaire also gives research something to work with.

Start A-Quest(opens in a new tab)