How vivid are the pictures in your mind's eye? From no image at all to almost as clear as seeing.
16 questions
about 5 min
VST-16
How it works
1You will see 16 scenarios in 4 groups
2Picture each scenario – with your eyes open or closed, whichever is easier for you, but the same way for every question
3Rate on a scale from 1–5 how clear and vivid your mental image is
4There are no right or wrong answers – be honest with yourself
The VST-16 is a self-assessment with its own items. Its structure and scoring follow the methodology of established research questionnaires on the vividness of mental imagery (VVIQ: Marks, 1973; PSI-Q: Andrade et al., 2014); the items are written in our own words and informed by published research methods. It is a self-assessment, not a psychometrically validated instrument, and does not replace clinical assessment.
Self-assessment, not a diagnosis. Mind Atlas helps you reflect on how you experience your inner world. It does not replace medical or psychological advice. Read the disclaimer
Think of a place you know well, an object on your desk or a scene from yesterday. Some people see it in front of their inner eye almost as clearly as in real life. Others see a faint, fleeting sketch. Some see nothing at all and simply know what things look like. This test measures how vivid those inner pictures feel to you.
Research on this question goes back to the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) by David Marks (1973), which asks people to picture scenes and rate how vivid they are. The Mind Atlas test follows the same idea with 16 scenes of its own and a five-step scale from “no image at all” to “as vivid as seeing”. Because the scenes and wording are new, your score is not a VVIQ score.
From aphantasia to hyperphantasia
Aphantasia means that voluntary visual imagery is absent: you cannot call up a picture in your mind. Adam Zeman and colleagues introduced the term in 2015. For the opposite end, imagery so vivid that it rivals seeing, they later used the term hyperphantasia (Zeman et al. 2020; Zeman 2024).
How common are the extremes? Wright et al. (2024) combined data from 9,063 people who filled in the original VVIQ. 0.9 % had the lowest possible score (aphantasia), 3.3 % had weak imagery (hypophantasia), 89.7 % were in the broad middle and 6.1 % were at the very top (hyperphantasia). Zeman (2024) puts extreme aphantasia at around 1 % and extreme hyperphantasia at around 3 % of the population.
In a survey of about 2,000 people with aphantasia and 200 with hyperphantasia, aphantasia was more often linked to scientific and mathematical jobs and hyperphantasia to creative professions (Zeman et al. 2020). These are tendencies in a self-selected group, not rules for individuals.
How to read your result
Your result places you in a band from “no picture” to “vivid as seeing”. The comparison with study figures is orientation only: this is a new self-assessment that has not been validated, and the figures come from studies with the original questionnaire.
It is not a diagnosis. Researchers describe aphantasia and hyperphantasia as the two ends of the natural range in how vividly people imagine (Zeman 2024). Visual imagery is also only one part of your inner world: many people with little visual imagery still imagine sounds, smells or movement, and that is what the other regions of your atlas map.
Questions and answers
Is aphantasia an illness?
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Aphantasia is not a medical diagnosis. Research describes it as one end of the natural range in how vividly people imagine (Zeman 2024). Many people only find out as adults that others really “see” pictures in their mind. If your imagery changes suddenly, for example after an illness or injury, talk to a doctor.
How common is aphantasia?
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In a combined sample of 9,063 people (Wright et al. 2024), 0.9 % scored as aphantasic and 3.3 % had weak imagery. Studies that also count markedly weak imagery report higher figures, for example 3.9 % in Dance et al. (2022).
Is this the VVIQ?
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No. Mind Atlas uses 16 scenes of its own on the same principle, so the score cannot be swapped for a VVIQ score. The original VVIQ (Marks 1973) is free to use; you can take it on aphantasie.org.
Do people with aphantasia dream in pictures?
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Often, yes. In Zeman et al. (2020) a majority of people with aphantasia said they dream visually, and Zeman (2024) notes that visual dreaming is often preserved. Dawes et al. (2020) found that people with aphantasia report fewer and less rich dreams than people with imagery.
Zeman A, Dewar M, Della Sala S (2015). Lives without imagery – Congenital aphantasia. Cortex 73:378–380. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2015.05.019
Zeman A, Milton F, Della Sala S, et al. (2020). Phantasia – The psychological significance of lifelong visual imagery vividness extremes. Cortex 130:426–440. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2020.04.003
Wright DJ, Scott MW, Kraeutner SN, et al. (2024). An international estimate of the prevalence of differing visual imagery abilities. Frontiers in Psychology 15:1454107. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1454107
Dance CJ, Ipser A, Simner J (2022). The prevalence of aphantasia (imagery weakness) in the general population. Consciousness and Cognition 97:103243. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2021.103243
Dawes AJ, Keogh R, Andrillon T, Pearson J (2020). A cognitive profile of multi-sensory imagery, memory and dreaming in aphantasia. Scientific Reports 10:10022. doi:10.1038/s41598-020-65705-7
Zeman A (2024). Aphantasia and hyperphantasia: exploring imagery vividness extremes. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 28(5):467–480. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2024.02.007
Peer-reviewed studies. Figures are quoted as reported there; your result comes from a self-assessment that has not been validated.
Who makes Mind Atlas
Mind Atlas (mymindatlas.org) is a service by the agency headon. The tests are self-assessments with our own questions and tasks, built on the published research methods listed above. They have not been validated and do not diagnose anything. Your result is calculated in this browser; your answers are not sent to any server.