The sound of rain, the smell of coffee, the feel of velvet. Seven senses, one fingerprint.
21 questions
about 10 min
MST-21
How it works
1You will go through 21 scenarios in 7 sensory domains
2Close your eyes and try to imagine each scenario
3Rate on a scale of 0–10 how vivid your imagery is
4There are no right or wrong answers
The MST-21 is a self-assessment with its own items. Its structure and scoring follow the methodology of established research questionnaires on multisensory imagery vividness (PSI-Q: Andrade et al., 2014; VVIQ: Marks, 1973); 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
Your answers never leave this browser.
Guide
What the sensory imagery test measures
Imagination is not only pictures. You might hear a song play in your head, smell coffee before it is made, or feel the weight of a heavy bag in your hands. This test asks how vividly you can imagine in seven kinds of experience: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, bodily sensation and emotional feeling.
The idea comes from the Plymouth Sensory Imagery Questionnaire (Psi-Q) by Andrade et al. (2014), which covers exactly these seven modalities. Mind Atlas uses 21 items of its own, three per sense, and shows the result as a fingerprint of seven values rather than a single number.
Seven senses in everyday life
Sight: picturing a street you know or the front door of a friend's house. Sound: a melody, a familiar voice, a phone ringing. Smell: fresh bread, rain on warm asphalt. Taste: a slice of lemon, a sip of coffee. Touch: velvet, cold water, sand under your feet. Bodily sensation: tired legs after a long walk, the stretch of a yawn. Emotional feeling: the warmth of good news or the tension before an exam.
For each sense, the test asks how clearly you can call up such experiences when they are not actually there. There are no right or wrong answers: it only asks how it feels for you.
Seven senses, not one
When Andrade et al. (2014) developed the Psi-Q, the seven modalities formed separate factors rather than one general imagery ability. Visual and sound imagery were most often rated as vivid, but people who rated one sense as strong and another as weak were not uncommon.
The same holds at the far end of the spectrum. Dawes et al. (2020) found that people with visual aphantasia reported weaker imagery in other senses on average, yet not all of them lacked it completely: only about 26 % reported no multi-sensory imagery at all. In a larger survey by Zeman et al. (2020), around half of those with aphantasia described an absence of imagery in all senses.
Sound is the best-studied case. Hinwar and Lambert (2021) compared auditory and visual imagery in 128 people and found the two strongly linked: most people with aphantasia also reported weak or absent auditory imagery. They proposed the term anauralia for a mind without inner sound.
How to read your result
Your fingerprint shows which senses are loud and which are quiet in your imagination. A mixed profile is not unusual, as the studies above show. The comparison bands are orientation only, because this is a new self-assessment that has not been validated.
It is a self-assessment, not a diagnosis. To see how your senses relate to pictures in your mind, compare this region with the visual region of your atlas.
Questions and answers
Can I have aphantasia and still imagine sounds?
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Yes. Dawes et al. (2020) found that most people with visual aphantasia still reported some imagery in at least one other sense; only about 26 % reported none at all.
What is anauralia?
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The absence of auditory imagery: no inner music, voices or sounds. Hinwar and Lambert (2021) proposed the term and found that it usually occurs together with aphantasia, although the two can occasionally appear separately.
Is this the Psi-Q?
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No. Mind Atlas follows the same structure of seven senses but uses 21 items of its own, so the score cannot be compared directly with Psi-Q results.
Sources
Andrade J, May J, Deeprose C, Baugh SJ, Ganis G (2014). Assessing vividness of mental imagery: The Plymouth Sensory Imagery Questionnaire. British Journal of Psychology 105(4):547–563. doi:10.1111/bjop.12050
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, 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
Hinwar RP, Lambert AJ (2021). Anauralia: The Silent Mind and Its Association With Aphantasia. Frontiers in Psychology 12:744213. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.744213
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.