{"id":1850,"date":"2026-08-31T16:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T14:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brainhelpdesk.nl\/?post_type=vraag&p=1850"},"modified":"2026-08-31T16:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T14:50:13","slug":"zijn-er-mensen-die-meer-of-minder-beelddenken-en-heeft-dit-gevolgen-voor-hoe-ze-leren","status":"publish","type":"vraag","link":"https:\/\/brainhelpdesk.nl\/en\/vraag\/zijn-er-mensen-die-meer-of-minder-beelddenken-en-heeft-dit-gevolgen-voor-hoe-ze-leren\/","title":{"rendered":"Do some people have stronger mental imagery than others? And does this affect how they learn?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is ‘mental imagery’?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mental imagery is the ability to conjure up an image without it entering through your eyes: essentially “pictures in your head.” These don’t have to be visual images: think of inner sounds, smells, movements, or feelings. Imagine your bedroom: perhaps you see the bed and the posters on the wall, hear the sound of the street, or feel how soft your duvet is. The brain patterns that neuroscientists measure when you imagine these things, closely resemble the activity that arises when you really see, hear, or touch something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inner images<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Normally, visual information travels from the eye via the retina, the optic nerve, and the thalamus, ultimately reaching the visual cortex in the brain (see also our earlier answer to: “What is the effect of a visual impairment on the brain? And is there anything we can do to restore it?<\/a>“). In the visual cortex, shapes and colors are processed and subsequently linked to meaning. With a mental image, this process runs in reverse: memory regions become active and send signals back to the visual cortex. You then “see” something without actually seeing it! That this really happens is evident from various measurements in the body. When people imagine a bright sun, for instance, their pupils contract slightly, the same thing that would happen if you were looking outside. In addition, eye movement studies show that when people imagine a previously seen picture, they spontaneously make (partly) the same eye movements as when actually looking at such a picture. It’s as if we’re ‘scanning’ the image in our head with our eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Variation between people<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Neuroscientists have discovered that there are significant differences in how vividly people experience mental imagery. At one end of the spectrum lies aphantasia. This is a condition affecting approximately 4% of people, in which they report having little to no visual mental imagery. Their ‘mind’s eye’ essentially remains dark. At the other end lies hyperphantasia: people who report almost photographic, extremely detailed inner images. Brain scans show that in aphantasia, the visual cortex is certainly capable of forming representations, but that its connections with other brain regions function differently. There are, for example, differences in the connections with frontal areas involved in attention and control, and also with structures for memory. At the same time, behavioral experiments show that people with aphantasia often perform normally or even more accurately on certain learning tasks, but use different strategies (they rely more on language, logic, or step-by-step reasoning).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Figure 1<\/strong>: The spectrum of mental imagery – from photographically sharp (left) to barely perceptible (right). Our capacity of mental imagery falls somewhere on this spectrum, where most people fall in the middle. Source: Aphantasia apple test<\/a>, Wikimedia Commons. License: CC-BY-SA 4.0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most people fall somewhere on the spectrum between aphantasia and hyperphantasia. Which strategy someone uses to think is therefore the result of this network of brain regions and their connections. This cannot be reduced to a dominant right or left hemisphere. The popular notion that visual thinkers primarily use their right hemisphere is an oversimplification of reality (see also our answer to the question: “Is it true that you can be \u2018left-brained\u2019 or \u2018right-brained\u2019?<\/a>“). At the same time, these differences raise an important question: what do they mean? Mental imagery appears to evoke stronger emotional responses than verbal or abstract thinking. That alone is a reason to appreciate the diversity in how our brains approach problems, and for the wide variation that exists along this spectrum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Together, these findings show that mental imagery is not an all-or-nothing skill! It is one of many ways in which the brain can simulate and understand the world. Whether you play rich inner movies or barely see any pictures at all, your brain has multiple routes for processing information and learning. The difference lies primarily in which route your brain automatically engages most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further reading?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Test where you fall on this spectrum yourself through a short quiz: https:\/\/aphantasia.com\/study\/vviq<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quill, E. (2026). Many people have no mental imagery. What’s going on in their brains? Nature<\/em>, 650(8100), 20-23.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pearson, J., Naselaris, T., Holmes, E. A., & Kosslyn, S. M. (2015). Mental imagery: functional mechanisms and clinical applications. Trends in Cognitive Sciences<\/em>, 19(10), 590-602.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pearson, J. (2019). The human imagination: the cognitive neuroscience of visual mental imagery. Nature Reviews Neuroscience<\/em>, 20(10), 624-634.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is ‘mental imagery’? Mental imagery is the ability to conjure up an image without it entering through your eyes: essentially “pictures in your head.” These don’t have to be visual images: think of inner sounds, smells, movements, or feelings. … Lees verder…<\/span><\/em><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,33,41],"class_list":["post-1850","vraag","type-vraag","status-publish","hentry","category-consciousness","category-sensation-perception","category-learning-memory"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainhelpdesk.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vraag\/1850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainhelpdesk.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vraag"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainhelpdesk.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/vraag"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainhelpdesk.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/brainhelpdesk.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vraag\/1850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1875,"href":"https:\/\/brainhelpdesk.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vraag\/1850\/revisions\/1875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainhelpdesk.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainhelpdesk.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}