Forschungsprojekt: Aphantasia Research Project Bonn
Aphantasia Research Project Bonn
Inspired by the research of Zeman, Dewar, and Della Sala (2015) as well as two individual cases in the Institute of Psychology of Bonn, we started our research project about the phenomenon of aphantasia. Aphantasia is commonly defined as the absence of voluntary visual imagery (Zeman et al., 2015).
In a pilot study, we collected data of persons affected by aphantasia and other possibly connected phenomena (e.g., hyperphantasia, prosopagnosia, synesthesia, and SDAM) in order to explore the barely investigated phenomenon and its connections to interindividual differences. The data strongly suggested that visual imagery (i. e., aphantasia) can be measured objectively and has a hereditary cause. It can therefore be assumed that aphantasia is neuronally detectable. Furthermore, connections to different memory components and facets of empathy could be found.
Pilot study
The pilot study has been completed and we are currently preparing a large study on the neural and genetic basis of aphantasia. If you would like to participate in this or subsequent studies, please subscribe to our newsletter.
We are explicitly looking for aphantasics (i. e., people with no or very weak imagery) and hyperphantasics (i. e., people with very strong imagery), but also for people who are not affected at all and would like to be examined as control persons. A residence in Germany is helpful, but not necessary.
Contact
If you have any questions, suggestions or offers regarding our research, please feel free to contact us:
Merlin Monzel
Leader of the Aphantasia Research Project
merlin.monzel[at]uni-bonn-diff.de
Kristof Keidel
Second in command
kristof.keidel[at]uni-bonn.de
Lehrstuhlinhaber: Prof. Dr. Dipl. Psych. Martin Reuter
Institute for Psychology
Department of Differential and Biological Psychology
Aphantasia-Study
Kaiser-Karl-Ring 9
53111 Bonn
