Autism and Aphantasia- A New Look at Sensory Imagination

Aphantasia is a condition where a person has difficulty voluntarily creating imagined sensations. While Aphantasia was initially described primarily as an inability to imagine visual images, it is now understood that it can also manifest as an inability to imagine sensations of sound, smell, taste, touch, and even bodily sensations. In the past, this condition was linked to Autism, a neurodevelopmental condition that affects how a person interacts with others and experiences the world.

However, the question arises whether the strength of this connection was overestimated in previous studies. To examine this, a study published in Conscious Cogn, 2026 Aug, focused on a group of 327 participants who reported a formal diagnosis of Autism, and compared their reports to a control group.

What did the study find?

  • In general, the autistic participants reported less vivid imagined experiences compared to the control group.
  • An interesting finding is that visual Aphantasia - the inability to imagine images - was not more common in the autistic group.
  • In contrast, a larger proportion of autistic participants reported an inability to create imagined sensations of smell and taste.

The connections found were mainly influenced by questions regarding the ability to create imagined sensations, but also by questions related to non-verbal communication.

What does this mean for us?

The researchers report that overall, the connections between Autism and multisensory Aphantasia are weak, especially concerning visual imagery. It is possible that weak facial processing skills, common among autistic people and also among those with Aphantasia, may be a factor or a marker for difficulties in non-verbal communication skills, thereby encouraging a weak connection between multisensory Aphantasia and Autism.

These findings suggest that the internal experience of imagination among autistic adults may be somewhat different from what was previously understood, with an emphasis on specific differences in sensory imagination of smell and taste, and not necessarily in visual imagery. It is important to remember that a single study is a first step in a deeper understanding of these issues, and it points to the complexity of the connection between Autism and the phenomenon of Aphantasia.