Aphantasia – a Disorder or a Superpower?
There are some associations with what you might call conditions or deficits, but it’s clear that it’s also associated with quite a number of strengths. When we look to the occupation, we find that people with aphantasia were more likely to be working in scientific, mathematical, IT-related trades, suggesting aphantasia may confer some benefit to abstract thinking. It may be associated with a rather active personality, whether they’ve got a tendency to get things done, to fix things. And of course, you know, things need to get fixed. So it’s great that there are people around with those abilities. So I’m not sure that It should be thought of as a problem that needs to be fixed, but rather as a aspect of somebody’s makeup which has some disadvantages, but which also has some clear advantages.
Is Aphantasia Genetic?
If you have aphantasia, there’s a roughly tenfold increase in the chance that your first-degree relatives will have it. So, we’re hoping to hunt for some aphantasia genes or some visual imagery genes in future work. I suspect that there is at least a genetic influence, as there is on most psychological characteristics.
What Jobs Are People With Aphantasia Made For?
It does seem overall to be a bias towards science, maths, more abstract professions among people that have aphantasia, if you look at the whole group. But within the group, there are exceptions, many exceptions to that room. There’s a group of aphantasiac artists, and they’re really interesting. When one talks to them, one of the interesting things is that for many of them aphantasia actually seems to be a motivation to create visual art, because they can’t see things in their mind’s eye and we love the visual world.
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