This is Science, Quickly, a podcast from Scientific American. I’m Stefano Montali. If I asked you to visualize, say, Harry Potter, you’d probably have no problem picturing him in your mind: a teenage ...

Entrepreneurs go down dead ends in business. They hit walls, become frustrated, and their emotions get the better of them. They give up and find another business. Or worse; they get a job. Unless you ...

Mike Swanson learned he had aphantasia when he was 52. That means he can't picture anything in his brain, not even his wife's face. This is what it feels like to have aphantasia day to day, as told to ...

Imagine you are in a soccer match, and it’s tied. Each team will begin taking penalty kicks. The crowd is roaring, and whether or not your team wins the game depends on your ability to hit the shot.

Some people can't form mental images. Here's what scientists are learning about the condition known as aphantasia—and why it's less rare than you think. The "apple test"—asking participants to close ...

People with aphantasia lack the ability to summon crisp images in their "mind's eye." But even though they can't visualize in this way, the blueprints for those imaginary images might still be nestled ...