Age differences in visual and multisensory imagery: Notes on distributions of aphantasia and hyperphantasia in individuals aged 20s-70s.
Level 3 - non-randomized controlled study
Cross-sectional observational study
PubMed 41831823 · doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2026.109433
What was done
An online cross-sectional survey was conducted among 2,558 Japanese individuals aged 20–79. Participants completed the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) and the Questionnaire Upon Mental Imagery (QMI) to assess visual and multisensory imagery vividness. Researchers compared scores across age brackets and calculated the prevalence of aphantasia (VVIQ 16–23) and hyperphantasia (VVIQ 75–80) across age groups.
What was found
Older adults, particularly those in their 60s and 70s, had significantly higher VVIQ and QMI vividness scores than younger adults. Aphantasia was significantly more frequent among individuals in their 20s and 30s and less frequent among those in their 60s and 70s, whereas hyperphantasia prevalence showed no significant age-related differences. Subtypes of aphantasia (visual and multisensory) were extracted across most age groups. The abstract reported no exact numerical prevalence rates, test statistics, or effect sizes.
Why it matters
This study indicates that subjective mental imagery vividness varies across age groups, demonstrating that aphantasia is reported more frequently in younger cohorts and underscoring the need to control for age in imagery research.
Limits
The design was cross-sectional, precluding causal or longitudinal developmental conclusions. Findings relied entirely on self-report questionnaires administered online in a single Japanese cohort, without objective behavioral or neurophysiological validation, and specific numerical results were omitted from the abstract.