“Do you have a mind’s eye?”
This question is not the most obvious classroom icebreaker, but the response from students has been nothing less than, well, eye-opening.
For most of us, in our everyday reading we rarely think about our capacity to mentally visualise or imagine literature. Mental pictures emerge unconsciously as we read, as if by magic.
However, for those readers who do not possess a mind’s eye, the reading experience is very different. So different, in fact, that when I have asked this question, some students have assumed that picturing a scene is just a figure of speech.
Students who can mentally visualise have a hard time imagining what it is to read without a mind’s eye. For both parties, there can be a cognitive shock as they realise that everyone’s experience of reading is so different.
Aphantasia and reading
Research suggests that around 4 per cent of the world’s population do not have a mind’s eye. However, this figure masks the fact that mental visualisation is highly variable and is book-ended by the extremes of aphantasia (the inability to mentally visualise) and hyperphantasia (the ability to create very vivid mental images).
The lack of a mind’s eye can have implications for everyday life. Aphants have no visual memory, and this can cause problems recognising people and places. What is less acknowledged, though, is the impact of aphantasia on the process and experience of reading literature. What difference does it make if readers do not generate mental images from the words? The answer is that it makes a huge difference.
For Victorian readers, there was a solution for aphantasia: illustration. The Victorian period was the great age of illustration when advancements in printing resulted in a surge of pictures in newspapers, magazines and books. According to the illustrator and novelist George du Maurier, illustrations effectively did the job of the mind’s eye and enhanced the pleasure of reading for those unable to imagine the words.
But illustrations could also have unpleasant side effects. Critics of illustration (among them William Wordsworth) argued that the proliferation of illustrations encouraged lazy and immature reading because those readers who could mentally visualise were unlikely to make any imaginative effort when the pictures were before them on the page.
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Victorian biases against illustration might seem far removed from our reading experiences today, but in some ways they have stayed with us and even become embedded in our pedagogical practices and assumptions. The transition of learners to independent reading - defined as needing minimal or no assistance - is primarily a transition to reading that is independent of pictures.
Young readers progress from picture books to illustrated chapter books and, eventually, to unillustrated books; a progression that fails to take account of readers who do not create mental images. In our systems of reading, aphantasic readers are hidden from view.
Asking the question
The question “do you have a mind’s eye?” restores visibility to these readers, especially when it comes to their engagement with literature. To readers without a mind’s eye, some literary texts have little appeal. Thomas Hardy’s lengthy descriptions might not provide the tiniest mental glimpse of the Wessex countryside; even Harry Potter’s universe loses its magic in its text-based form.
An aphantasic student told me that she cannot read science-fiction novels, which depend on mental world-building, although she loves science-fiction films. Generally, my conversations with aphantasic students indicate that they are less keen on heavily descriptive novels, while many enjoy graphic novels.
As teachers, we can make the experiences of aphantasic readers easier and more pleasurable as they find their way around literature and educational practices not geared towards their ways of reading. Most crucially, we need to recognise that at the fundamental level of mental visualisation, reading is a neurodiverse activity that is undertaken by aphantasic readers, hyperphantasic readers and everyone between these extremes.
It is, then, worth asking students the question. It can open up fruitful discussions and debates about experiences of reading. In practical terms, we may also want to rethink the use of prompts that assume that students can imagine things.
Another way forward is to expose aphantasic readers to a range of literary texts, including those that come with pictures. For too long, we have carried biases against reading with illustrations. Ultimately, our most important first step as educators of students at various stages and across disciplines is to be aware that not all readers generate mental images from words. Aphantasia does not need to be a blind spot in how we learn to read.
Julia Thomas is a professor of English literature at Cardiff University and author of The Victorian Mind’s Eye
