Images in Our Mind are Less Precise Than You Might Think

Despite how vivid your inner-vision is, research shows you likely miss certain details

Hiya!

Of all the remarkable, bizarre, and bewildering discoveries intelligent minds are making these days, perhaps my favoritist — no, that’s not a word, but it is now — involves how we think. I don’t mean the contents of our thoughts or the reasons behind them. I’m talking about the literal forms our thoughts take.

For instance, I happen to have a multi-layered inner monologue and a deep connection with my bodily intuition and instincts — but I struggle to “see” anything in my mind unless, for some reason, I’m writing (but not reading) fiction. Otherwise, it’s like trying to see through a window covered in condensation.

I’ve talked with a few people I know who can “see” really well in their minds, and am always blown away by the amount of detail they can envision. Some say their inner vision is just as detailed and vibrant as real life. But new research suggests that inner vision isn’t quite as detailed as most people think.

The Mind’s Eye, or Lack Thereof

Most of the time, my inner vision is blank, but my mind is anything but empty, dull, or quiet. Still, it takes a lot of focused effort for me to picture something in my mind, and even then, it’s fuzzy at best. But some people can’t see anything in their mind’s eye. In fact, research suggests about 3.6 percent of the population cannot visualize their imagination. The official term is “aphantasia,” but it’s commonly called “mind blind.”

However, most of the human population appear to see things vividly in their mind. So much so that their bodies will physically respond to what they’re imagining. For instance, when most people visualize light or dark objects, their pupils dilate to match the brightness of the imagined object.

Studies involving brain imaging, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), show that imagining something in your mind’s eye engages the same neurons similarly to perceiving it in real life. This suggests that “seeing” in your imagination has quite a bit in common with seeing for real.

Given how widespread the visualization trait is across the human species, there have understandably also been debates regarding its importance and purpose for existing. There’s one dispute, in particular, that has persisted amongst cognitive psychologists and philosophers for decades. It’s called the “imagery debate.”

On one side, experts argue that mental images are like pictures that our brain uses as a tool to reason about things. The other side suggests mental imagery is nothing more than an illusion or trick of the mind and has no relevant role in cognition. If anything, this side also claims that the images are more like sentences describing scenes.

This debate will come up again, but, for the record, I don’t see why there needs to be a singular answer. I mean, if we’ve learned anything at this point, there is no single definition or experience for how images appear in a person’s mind. It’s subjective.

Anywho, a new study discovered that while inner visualization is subjective, there does appear to be a common phenomenon — that these images lack far more details than people assume.