Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions

by Temple Grandin

People with hyperphantasia produced excessively detailed memories. Further research with functional MRI brain scanning showed that hyperphantasic visual thinkers had greater brain activity between the prefrontal cortex and the network in the occipital visual cortex. A New York Times article by Carl Zimmer headlined “Many People Have a Vivid ‘Mind’s Eye,’ While Others Have None at All” describes how researchers are looking into the brain circuitry responsible for these two extreme conditions. “So far, that work suggests that mental imagery emerges from a network of brain regions that talk to each other,” he wrote. These brain characteristics may be linked to creativity and novel ways of solving problems. Not surprisingly, people with aphantasia tend to go into science and math fields, while people with hyperphantasia gravitate to more visually creative jobs. Paradoxically, however, according to Zeman, it’s not unusual for people with aphantasia to dream in images. He distinguishes between how the sleeping mind works and how the awake mind works. He explains that dreaming is a “bottom up” process that comes from the brain stem, whereas seeing images when you’re awake is “top down” from the cortex.