Aphantasia: Can’t Picture an Apple? 8 Ways to Study Without Mental Images
Close your eyes and imagine a bright red apple. Can you actually see it in your mind, or do you simply know what it looks like? For some people, mental pictures never appear on command. This is known as aphantasia. But how do you study and remember information when so much learning advice tells you to “visualize” everything? Discover what science says about memory without mental images, and eight practical ways to learn without relying on them.
The Apple Test: What If Nothing Appears?
Try one more thing with that apple: turn it green. Place it on a wooden table. Can you see the change?
Some people can imagine its shape, shiny skin, and even the shadow beneath it. Others experience only a faint impression. And some see no mental image at all: they simply know what the apple looks like without actually picturing it.
If that sounds familiar, you may have wondered why instructions like “visualize the answer” or “picture the textbook page” never seemed to work for you. You can recognize an apple, describe it, and explain its features. Yet when someone asks you to see it in your mind, nothing appears.
For people with aphantasia, this is an everyday experience.
What Is Aphantasia?
Aphantasia is the absence or marked reduction of voluntary visual mental imagery, the ability to intentionally create pictures in your mind.
Neurologist Adam Zeman and colleagues introduced the term in 2015 (Zeman et al.). A 2024 scientific review estimated that approximately 1% of people experience extreme aphantasia, with higher estimates when milder forms are included (Zeman).
Aphantasia is not blindness, and it does not mean someone lacks imagination or intelligence. People can recognize objects, understand visual information, and think creatively without consciously seeing mental pictures. The apple exercise is not a diagnostic test. Mental imagery is a subjective experience, and it does not necessarily resemble an image projected onto closed eyelids. Lifelong aphantasia is generally understood as a variation in how people experience mental imagery, rather than evidence of a medical disorder.
But it raises an interesting question: If you cannot picture something in your mind, how do you remember it?
How Can You Remember Without Pictures?
Think of your childhood home. You might not see it in your mind, but still know where the kitchen was, who lived there, or how to get to your bedroom.
Memory is more than mental photography. We also remember meanings, facts, experiences, sequences, and spatial relationships.
In a 2021 experiment, 61 people with aphantasia and matched controls studied scenes and drew them from memory. The aphantasia group recalled fewer objects and visual details, but preserved spatial relationships comparably well (Bainbridge et al.).
A 2026 experiment involving 46 participants with aphantasia and 46 without found differences in extremely brief visual memory, but not in a working-memory condition with more time to encode information. Verbal strategies benefited working-memory performance in both groups (Monzel et al.).
Not seeing an image does not mean being unable to remember. But abilities and experiences vary; aphantasia does not give everyone identical strengths or difficulties.
What Do People with Aphantasia Actually Do to Learn?
A 2025 University of Oklahoma study examined learning-related measures in 450 college students, then interviewed 14 students with aphantasia. The interviews revealed strategies including written lists, verbal explanations, connections to familiar knowledge, and combining different learning formats. Broad approaches to learning did not differ significantly across imagery abilities (Cavazos et al.).
A smaller 2026 study of five people described possible strategies involving semantic knowledge, inner speech, and external memory aids (Hayes et al.). These studies describe experiences, not proof that one study method works best for everyone.
What about a memory palace? Imagining rooms and objects may feel frustrating if you cannot visualize them. But spatial knowledge is not identical to visual imagery: actual locations, labels, and routes may still be useful.
8 Practical Study Techniques for Aphantasia
You don’t need mental pictures to learn effectively. There are other ways to organize information, understand complex ideas, and recall what you’ve studied. Based on research into aphantasia and effective learning, here are eight practical techniques you can try in your everyday study routine.
1. Put Your Mental Map on Paper
Studying the circulatory system? Draw a few labeled boxes and arrows: Heart → Arteries → Body tissues → Veins → Heart. You do not need realistic pictures. A visible diagram lets you follow relationships instead of trying to hold a scene in your mind.
Try this: After a chapter, sketch its main ideas on one page and connect them with arrows.
2. Replace Imaginary Pages with Structured Notes
If “picture the page” does nothing for you, give the information a clear written structure: main topic → definition → key facts → examples. For a historical event, divide your notes into causes, events, and consequences.
Try this: Close your notes and recreate the outline from memory. Then check what you missed. Organization helps; the recall attempt tells you what has stuck.
3. Link New Ideas to Familiar Knowledge
Learning about mitochondria? Start with the idea that they help cells produce usable energy, then connect it to something familiar, such as an energy supply. The analogy is a starting point, not a perfect scientific description.
Try this: Ask, “What do I already understand that helps explain this?” Connecting concepts was one approach described by students with aphantasia (Cavazos et al.).
4. Build Cause-and-Effect Chains
Instead of imagining the water cycle as a moving picture, explain it as a sequence: sun heats water → evaporation → condensation → precipitation. Then ask why each step leads to the next.
Try this: Rewrite a difficult paragraph using “because,” “therefore,” and “as a result.” This is especially useful for processes in science, history, and economics.
5. Teach It Out Loud
Finish a section, close the book, and explain it as if speaking to a curious beginner. For photosynthesis, say what plants use, what they produce, and why it matters. When you stumble, you have identified something to review.
Try this: Record a two-minute explanation, or write one if you prefer not to speak. Check the details afterward.
6. Turn Notes into Questions
Reading your notes again and again may make the information feel familiar, but can you remember it without looking? Instead of simply rereading, turn key facts into questions and test yourself.
For example, after studying the hippocampus, ask yourself: “What does the hippocampus help us do?” Try answering in your own words before checking your notes. The answer: “It plays an important role in forming new episodic memories.” You can also use flashcards or record questions and answers on your phone.
Try this: Write five questions after each study session and answer them without looking at your notes. This technique, known as practice testing, is supported by learning research, although its specific benefits for people with aphantasia need further study (Dunlosky et al.).
7. Review Across Several Days
One long session can leave material familiar today but difficult to retrieve later. Try reviewing tomorrow, several days afterward, and again the following week. These are example intervals, not a fixed formula.
Try this: Before opening yesterday’s notes, write down everything you remember. Distributed practice and retrieval are well-supported general study approaches (Dunlosky et al.).
8. Bring Learning into the Physical World
Studying geometry? Move paper shapes around to understand how they fit together. Learning anatomy? Explore a labeled model. Preparing a presentation? Place topic cards around your desk and practice moving through them in order.
Using real objects and physical space gives you something concrete to work with instead of relying on mental pictures.
Try this: The next time you struggle with a difficult concept, find a way to demonstrate it using objects, drawings, or physical movement.
Where Cognitive Skills Fit In
Learning involves several cognitive abilities, including attention, working memory, planning, reasoning, and spatial perception. These skills help us concentrate, follow instructions, solve problems, and understand relationships between ideas, with or without mental images.
Alongside the study techniques described above, cognitive training offers another way to practice abilities such as attention, working memory, and spatial perception through interactive exercises. It can complement everyday learning and other activities that keep the mind active and engaged.
Common Questions
Does aphantasia mean poor memory?
No. Some studies find differences in visual detail and autobiographical recall, but this does not imply poor memory in every domain (Zeman; Bainbridge et al.).
Can people with aphantasia have visual dreams?
Yes. Dream imagery may remain even when voluntary waking imagery is absent (Zeman).
Can you learn to visualize?
No method has been established as reliably restoring voluntary imagery in lifelong aphantasia. If you suddenly lose an ability to visualize that you previously had, seek medical advice, especially alongside other new symptoms.
The Bottom Line
You may not see an apple in your mind, but you can still describe it, recognize it, and learn about it. The same is true of complex subjects. Try explaining, connecting, mapping, questioning, and recalling information. Keep the methods that suit you; there is no single “aphantasia learning style.”
You do not need a mental picture to build understanding.
The information in this article is provided for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. For medical advice, please consult your doctor.
References
- Zeman, A., Dewar, M., & Della Sala, S. (2015). Lives without imagery – Congenital aphantasia. Cortex, 73, 378–380. DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2015.05.019
- Zeman, A. (2024). Aphantasia and hyperphantasia: Exploring imagery vividness extremes. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 28(5), 467–480. DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2024.02.007
- Bainbridge, W. A., Pounder, Z., Eardley, A. F., & Baker, C. I. (2021). Quantifying aphantasia through drawing: Those without visual imagery show deficits in object but not spatial memory. Cortex, 135, 159–172. DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2020.11.014
- Cavazos, J. T., Baskin, H. M., Mashigian, T. M., & Cavazos, M. A. (2025). Living and learning with a blind mind’s eye: College students with aphantasia. Frontiers in Psychology, 16, 1615860. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1615860
- Hayes, S. J., Miles, G. E., & Evans, S.-A. (2026). “Unseen strategies”: What can the experience of aphantasia teach us about cognitive strategies in memory? New Ideas in Psychology, 80, 101215. DOI: 10.1016/j.newideapsych.2025.101215
- Monzel, M., Yang, C., Plancher, G., Milton, F., & Reuter, M. (2026). Influences of mental imagery at different stages of Atkinson’s and Shiffrin’s modal model: Visual imagery is associated with enhanced iconic memory performance. Cortex, 200, 151–164. DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2026.04.011
- Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. DOI: 10.1177/1529100612453266
