Ava G. Peruski¹ (), Karin H. James¹; ¹Indiana University, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences

Utilizing visual imagery is a common occurrence in day-to-day life for most people, particularly in recalling visual memories. However, a portion of the population is unable to create these images – a condition known as aphantasia. This begs the question, how does one remember visual information without visual imagery? Past literature has found that aphantasics differ from typical imagers in the effectiveness of different retrieval strategies and that aphantasics self-report using written/verbal strategies to encode and retrieve visual information. With this in mind, we wondered whether the effectiveness of encoding support strategies would vary between groups of different imagery abilities, which could give us an insight into how visual imagery is tied to visual memory. We hypothesized that when given different encoding support strategies (thinking, writing, drawing, control) for memorizing visual information, writing (based on the self-reported use of writing for encoding and retrieval) would be more effective for aphantasics compared to a high imaging ability group. We measured both free recall and forced choice recognition of items included in cartoon pictures and found no difference between our two groups, but we did find that thinking, followed by writing, were the most effective encoding strategies overall for memorizing visual information. It is possible that because writing and drawing required participants to look away from the picture, while thinking did not, this caused thinking to be the most effective strategy. Additionally, it is possible that drawing and writing would have been more effective for longer-term retention. To address these limitations, future work will examine these conditions as different rehearsal strategies and will examine multiple time points.

Acknowledgements: Research reported in this abstract was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute Of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number T32HD007475. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.