For people with aphantasia, visual imagery is absent or markedly impaired. Here, we investigated the relationship between aphantasia and two other neurodevelopmental conditions also linked to imagery differences: synaesthesia, and autism. In Experiment 1a and 1b, we asked whether aphantasia and synaesthesia can co-occur, an important question given that synaesthesia is linked to strong imagery. Taking grapheme-colour synaesthesia as a test case, we found that synaesthesia can be objectively diagnosed in aphantasics, suggesting visual imagery is not necessary for synaesthesia to occur. However, aphantasia influenced the type of synaesthesia experienced (favouring ‘associator’ over ‘projector’ synaesthesia - a distinction tied to the phenomenology of the synaesthetic experience). In Experiment 2, we asked whether aphantasics have traits associated with autism, an important question given that autism – like aphantasia – is linked to weak imagery. We found that aphantasics reported more autistic traits than controls, with weaknesses in imagination and social skills.

对于无幻觉症患者，视觉意象缺失或明显受损。在这里，我们研究了幻觉症与其他两种与意象差异有关的神经发育疾病之间的关系：联觉和自闭症。在实验 1a 和 1b 中，我们询问了无幻觉和联觉是否可以同时发生，这是一个重要的问题，因为联觉与强烈的意象有关。以字素色联觉作为测试案例，我们发现联觉可以在幻觉中被客观地诊断，这表明视觉意象对于联觉的发生并不是必需的。然而，幻觉影响了所经历的联觉类型（偏向于“关联者”而非“投射者”联觉——这一区别与联觉体验的现象学相关）。在实验 2 中，我们询问了 aphantasics 是否具有与自闭症相关的特征，这是一个重要的问题，因为自闭症 - 就像 aphantasia - 与弱图像有关。我们发现 aphantasics 报告了比对照组更多的自闭症特征，在想象力和社交技能方面存在弱点。