Have you ever heard of aphantasia?
People with this condition – the inability to visualise mental images – are harder to spook with scary stories, a new study shows.
The study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, tested how aphantasic people reacted to reading distressing scenarios, like being chased by a shark, falling off a cliff, or being in a plane that s about to crash.
As many as five percent of us may have the condition but the problem is there s still so much to learn about its myriad of forms.
Sign up for more information, and possible participation in further research, through this link to the Future Minds Lab.
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The link between mental imagery and emotions may be closer than we thought.
It turns out seeing really is believing when it comes to scary stories. Photo: Unsplash.
People with aphantasia – that is, the inability to visualise mental images – are harder to spook with scary stories, a new UNSW Sydney study shows.
The study, published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, tested how aphantasic people reacted to reading distressing scenarios, like being chased by a shark, falling off a cliff, or being in a plane that’s about to crash.
The researchers were able to physically measure each participant’s fear response by monitoring changing skin conductivity levels – in other words, how much the story made a person sweat. This type of test is commonly used in psychology research to measure the body’s physical expression of emotion.
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IMAGE: A fractal inspired carpet designed by Richard Taylor and his University of Oregon colleagues is underfoot during a reception in a Chicago building. A new study by UO psychologists working. view more
Credit: Photo by Richard Taylor
EUGENE, Ore. Dec. 11, 2020 By the time children are 3 years old they already have an adult-like preference for visual fractal patterns commonly seen in nature, according to University of Oregon researchers.
That discovery emerged among children who ve been raised in a world of Euclidean geometry, such as houses with rooms constructed with straight lines in a simple non-repeating manner, said the study s lead author Kelly E. Robles, a doctoral student in the UO s Department of Psychology.