Imagery agnosia and its phenomenology

TL;DR

This paper explores imagery agnosia across sensory modalities, emphasizing its neuropsychological basis, phenomenology, and implications for understanding individual differences in imagery and memory.

Contribution

It broadens the concept of imagery agnosia beyond visual imagery to include auditory and other sensory forms, proposing a unified neuropsychological framework.

Findings

Descriptions of auditory imagery agnosia phenomenology

Hypotheses on brain processes underlying imagery deficits

Implications for consciousness and education

Abstract

Lack of vivid sensory imagery has recently become an active subject of research, under the name of aphantasia. Extremely vivid imagery, or hyperphantasia, is at the other end of the spectrum of individual differences. While most research has focused on visual imagery in this paper I argue that from a neuropsychological perspective this phenomenon is much more widespread, and should be categorized as imagery sensory agnosia. After over twenty years of learning to play music phenomenology of auditory imagery agnosia is described from the first-person perspective. Reflections on other forms of imagery agnosia and deficits of autobiographical memories are presented and a hypothesis about putative brain processes that can account for such phenomena is discussed. Extreme individual differences in imagery and in autobiographical memory have implications for many fields of study, from consciousness research to education.