Last December, I closed my eyes and tried to visualise a potoo. This tropical bird has a “round, kind of pill-shaped head”, my mental imagery coach described to me, and is covered with brown feathers.

Picture a reality where nothing is pictured. Psychology reveals what life looks like for someone with aphantasia. When someone prompts you to imagine a sunset, you can likely picture the bright ...

On social media, 8th-grade English teacher Jak Kurdi often shares his love of books and writing. Growing up in a household that prioritized reading, he could vividly picture the worlds on the page, ...

Visual imagery is when your brain creates pictures inside your head and is a big part of how most people process information. But some people aren’t able to picture anything in their minds; this ...

Some people can't form mental images. Here's what scientists are learning about the condition known as aphantasia—and why it's less rare than you think. The "apple test"—asking participants to close ...

Visualizing a memory is a common occurrence for many people. A whiff of cinnamon and ginger may whisk you back to your childhood kitchen to relive eating freshly baked cookies, while hearing a ...

A small team of brain researchers at South China Normal University, working with a colleague from the University of New South Wales, has found that the visual processing parts of the brain light up in ...

Two years ago, Sarah Shomstein realized she didn’t have a mind’s eye. The vision scientist was sitting in a seminar room, listening to a scientific talk, when the presenter asked the audience to ...

How many times have you watched a book adaptation on film or TV, and felt disappointed when a scene wasn’t quite how you’d pictured it? Or perhaps a character looked nothing like you’d imagined them ...