eprintid: 10205391
rev_number: 7
eprint_status: archive
userid: 699
dir: disk0/10/20/53/91
datestamp: 2025-02-28 13:02:03
lastmod: 2025-02-28 13:02:03
status_changed: 2025-02-28 13:02:03
type: article
metadata_visibility: show
sword_depositor: 699
creators_name: Arnold, DH
creators_name: Hutchinson, M
creators_name: Bouyer, LN
creators_name: Schwarzkopf, DS
creators_name: Pellicano, E
creators_name: Saurels, BW
title: Don't think of a pink elephant: Individual differences in visualisation predict involuntary imagery and its neural correlates
ispublished: pub
divisions: UCL
divisions: B02
divisions: C07
divisions: D05
divisions: F66
keywords: Aphantasia, Electroencephalography, Intrusive thoughts, Visual imagery
note: © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC
BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
abstract: There are substantial differences in the capacity of people to have imagined visual experiences, ranging from a lifelong inability (Congenital Aphantasia) to people who report having imagined experiences that are as vivid as actually seeing (Hyper-Phantasia). While Congenital Aphantasia has typically been framed as a cognitive deficit, it is possible that a weak or absent ability to have imagined visual sensations is balanced by a heightened resistance to intrusive thoughts – which are experienced as an imagined sensation. Here, we report on a direct test of that proposition. We asked people to either imagine, or to try not to imagine having a range of audio and visual experiences while we recorded their brain activity with electroencephalography (EEG). Ratings describing the subjective vividness of different people's voluntary visualisations predicted if they would also report having involuntary visualisations – such as an imagined experience of seeing a pink elephant when they were asked not to. Both the prevalence of different people's involuntary visualisations and the typical vividness of their visualisations could be predicted by neural correlates of disinhibition, working memory, and neural feedback. Our data suggest that the propensity of people to have involuntary visual experiences can scale with the subjective intensity of their typical experiences of visualisation.
date: 2025-02
date_type: published
publisher: Elsevier BV
official_url: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2024.10.020
oa_status: green
full_text_type: pub
language: eng
primo: open
primo_central: open_green
verified: verified_manual
elements_id: 2341256
doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.10.020
medium: Print-Electronic
pii: S0010-9452(24)00308-3
lyricists_name: Pellicano, Elizabeth
lyricists_id: LPELL25
actors_name: Pellicano, Elizabeth
actors_id: LPELL25
actors_role: owner
funding_acknowledgements: [Australian Research Council]
full_text_status: public
publication: Cortex
volume: 183
pagerange: 53-65
event_location: Italy
issn: 0010-9452
citation:        Arnold, DH;    Hutchinson, M;    Bouyer, LN;    Schwarzkopf, DS;    Pellicano, E;    Saurels, BW;      (2025)    Don't think of a pink elephant: Individual differences in visualisation predict involuntary imagery and its neural correlates.                   Cortex , 183    pp. 53-65.    10.1016/j.cortex.2024.10.020 <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2024.10.020>.       Green open access   
 
document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10205391/1/Arnold%20et%20al%202024.pdf