Just came across this interesting Science Daily article about people with aphantasia (mind-blindness) not being easy to spook with scary stories.
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Damn deficient science journalism…
Just to clarify here for what is worth. Aphantasia, “the inability to see with the mind’s eye” has nothing to do with “mind-blindness”, which, according to Wikipedia, “is a concept of a cognitive divergence where an individual is unable to attribute mental states to others”, i. e., a totally unrelated condition.
The study has nothing to do with mind-blindness, but it seems that newsroom.unsw.edu.au (the source from the shared article here) has problems distinguishing them (it also has another article, wrongly titled " Being ‘mind-blind’ may make remembering, dreaming and imagining harder, study finds", talking about aphantasia").
No comment section there, so… 
The original study:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2021.0267
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Good catch.
Didn’t realize that mind-blindness is a formal term. I supposed they were just offering a made-up wording to simplify the idea for people who didn’t know what aphantasia is.
Would you say that mind-blindness is the same as lacking theory of mind?
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I hope you didn’t found my comment harsh on you, I’m sure not a lot of people know that, but I feel very disappointed with journalism in general (damn profit-driven sensationalism) so maybe I extrapolated here. Actually, I didn’t knew that myself, but the term seemed very awkward and I’ve never heard of it in the context of aphantasia, so I did a quick google search.
Yes, it seems that way, but I’m no expert at all. By the way, the original study is very interesting!
My brother has full aphantasia, but he seems to enjoy a lot reading fiction, so, I don’t know. Good food for thought. Thanks for sharing!
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Here’s a related article:
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What I’m really interested in is the specific kinds of ‘aphantasia’.
I think the most common is visual aphantasia, but from what I heard most people without the ability to imagine sensation, they still retain some degree of conceptual-spatial abilities, making the method of loci possible for possibly anyone.
I’m also wondering about this “hyperphantasia”. The interesting thing is that, hyperphantasia seems to be a thing which takes time. Imagine an apple. Immediately, you might not even see anything, or maybe just a red blurry shape and know it’s an apple. But if one were to inquire more about what this ‘apple’ looks like, then you start going from ‘aphantasia’ closer to ‘hyperphantasia’ just by continuously filling in the gaps more and more in the mind’s eye until it’s like… WOAH … so I feel it’s partly related to the deliberateness of using the imagination. I have memory palaces that are mostly like, ‘spots’ and don’t really call up visual imagery much (e.g., loci where I’m mostly concerned about the meditations of meanings, like forgiveness, appreciate, awe, and so on). I do have visual imagery at these spots as well, but I can still meditate on these loci without focusing on the visual imagery and instead of on the meanings.
The deliberateness of imagination can also be applied to nonvisual sensation, such as touch. Imagine something warm. If you fill in the details and deliberate it, it start to get more and more “real”.
I think that’s part of the power of empathy and emotional wellbeing is that we can imagine very painful things but at the same time be in the present and relate painful things with such as understanding, meaning, joy. So pain is no longer alone in imagination, the pain is also with healing for instance. When real pain comes in the real world, it gives a kind of handle to grasp, that there is pain but also you can imagine there’s understanding and healing.
I’m also wondering how aphantasia-ic people with aphantasia are – after practicing using imagination a lot, I feel imagination can be improved just like exercise can improve physical fitness. I wouldn’t be surprised if many people with aphantasia can become more and more visual/sensational. Like if my muscles weren’t strong, I still have muscles that can be trained/encultivated.
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Olá 
Seu irmão possui Afantasia, correto?
Poderia me informar se ele conseguiu desenvolver adaptações de técnicas de memorização como o Palácio da Memória ou se possui uma técnica própria? Eu também possuo Afantasia total e adoraria saber sobre pessoas que possuem a mesma condição, e se elas possuem uma técnica de memorização própria ou versões adaptadas à elas.
Talvez queira dar uma olhada em minhas postagens…
Olá
Respondendo sua pergunta sobre se é possível pessoas com Afantasia treinarem sua mente para “visualizar” imagens.
Eu possuo Afantasia Total e por mais que eu tente visualizar com todos os meus esforços uma imagem em minha mente, eu não vejo absolutamente nada e só acabo me frustrando. Já desisti de tentar visualizar imagens em minha mente. E eu acredito que pessoas que nascem com Afantasia são incapazes de “ver” imagens em sua mente.
Ao menos no meu caso é impossível.