An international estimate of the prevalence of differing visual imagery abilities
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The aim of this research was to establish prevalence estimates for aphantasia, hypophantasia, typical imagery ability, and hyperphantasia in a large multi-national cohort. In Study 1, the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire was completed by 3,049 participants. Results indicated prevalence estimates of 1.2% for aphantasia, 3% for hypophantasia, 89.9% for typical imagery ability, and 5.9% for hyperphantasia. In Study 2, to replicate these findings in a larger sample, the Study 1 data were combined with openly available data from previous prevalence studies to create a total sample of 9,063 participants. Re-analysis of this data confirmed prevalence estimates of 0.9% for aphantasia, 3.3% for hypophantasia, 89.7% for typical imagery ability, and 6.1% for hyperphantasia. These robust and up-to-date estimates provide enhanced clarity to researchers regarding the prevalence of differing visual imagery abilities and provide a platform for future studies exploring the role of visual imagery in various cognitive and behavioral tasks.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".