This morning, I realized for the first time that my partner of 11 years has aphantasia–difficulty picturing things in his mind’s eye. I, on the other hand, have a very vivid mental camera.
I started thinking about our different reading preferences and wondering to what degree our mind’s eyes affect them. I read a lot of fantasy, speculative fiction, and horror in paperback and audio. My partner is a voracious reader of comics, graphic novels, and manga.
We also have different writing styles. I like to focus on the environment in my writing, and my partner often focuses on mechanics.
So I’m wondering: do you have aphantasia or not, or something in between? What do you like to read, and how does your inner perception affect the way you engage with the books?
Visualisation and imagery in general has an influence on emotion. For example take a look at “The Critical Role of Mental Imagery in Human Emotion: Insights from Aphantasia”.
In this study, participants were once told a story in words and once shown a story in pictures. The conductivity of the skin was measured, which changes through sweating in response to fear.
There were no differences between the control group and the aphantasia group for the picture story, but there were differences for the story told in words.