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Methodology

How Mind Atlas works

Mind Atlas offers five self-tests on how your mind works: imagery, senses, memory, inner voice and perception. This page explains how they are built and scored, what they cannot do, what happens to your answers and who is responsible.

The five tests

Each test maps one dimension of your atlas. Four are questionnaires with items of our own; the fifth is a short perception experiment instead of a questionnaire.

Mind's eye test VST-16

Items
16 items of our own in 4 groups
Answer scale
1 (I see nothing) to 5 (Extremely vivid)
Duration
about 5 minutes
Scoring
Your ratings are added up to a total between 16 and 80. Up to 32 counts as weak imagery and from 75 as very vivid imagery, as in studies with the original questionnaire (Wright et al. 2024); the division of the middle range is our own orientation.

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.

Go to the test: Visual imagery

Mental imagery test for all senses MST-21

Items
21 items of our own in 7 groups
Answer scale
0 (No impression at all — I only think about it) to 10 (As if I were experiencing it right now)
Duration
about 10 minutes
Scoring
For each of the seven senses, your three ratings are averaged (0 to 10). The result is a profile of seven values rather than a single number. Up to 3 counts as quiet and from 7 as vivid; these limits are our own orientation.

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.

Go to the test: Sensory imagery

Autobiographical memory test AMS-16

Items
16 items of our own in 4 groups
Answer scale
1 (Disagree completely) to 5 (Agree completely)
Duration
about 5 minutes
Scoring
Each of the four groups (episodic memory, factual memory, spatial memory, future imagination) gets a sum from 4 to 20. The band is based on episodic memory, the reliving of your own past; its limits are our own orientation.

The AMS-16 is a self-assessment with its own items, modelled on the methodology of research questionnaires on autobiographical memory (SAM: Palombo et al., 2013; 26 items); 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 or diagnosis of SDAM (Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory).

Go to the test: Autobiographical memory

Inner monologue test IVS-15

Items
15 items of our own in 5 groups
Answer scale
1 (Never) to 5 (Very often)
Duration
about 5 minutes
Scoring
Each of the five facets gets a sum from 3 to 15. The main value adds dialogic inner speech and other people's voices (6 to 30); its band limits are our own orientation.

The IVS-15 is a self-assessment with its own items. Its structure follows the methodology of research questionnaires on inner speech (VISQ-R: Alderson-Day et al., 2018); 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 diagnose anendophasia (absence of inner speech).

Go to the test: Inner voice

Binocular rivalry test Binocular Rivalry Experiment

Rounds
4 calibration rounds, then 26 rounds: 6 without imagining (control) and 20 in which you imagine red or blue
Answer
Which colour won for a moment: red, mixed or blue
Duration
about 15 minutes
Scoring
The rounds with imagining show how often the imagined colour won, compared with chance (50 %). The score runs from -1 to 1; 0 means no measurable effect. Its band limits are our own orientation.

An experiment instead of a questionnaire: a simplified web version of the binocular rivalry method of Pearson, Clifford and Tong (2008), which Keogh and Pearson (2018) used with people who describe themselves as aphantasic. At home the results are less precise than in a lab.

Go to the test: Perception experiment

What the tests are not

  • Not a diagnosis. The tests are self-assessments for personal insight and do not replace a medical or psychological examination.
  • Not validated. The tests have not been psychometrically validated; the comparison with study figures is orientation only.
  • Not the original questionnaires. The items are our own, written in our own words, so your scores cannot be swapped for VVIQ, Psi-Q, SAM or VISQ-R scores.
  • Not a measurement like in a lab. A value near 50 % in the experiment means no measurable effect in this session; it does not prove that you have no imagery.

More in the disclaimer.

What happens to your answers

Your answers are scored in this browser and are not sent to our server. There are no accounts.

Before you save a result, you choose where it stays: only for this session (gone when you close the tab) or on this device (kept in this browser until you delete it).

If you share a result, it travels as a code in the link after the # sign, which browsers do not send to our server. Only if you explicitly create a public profile card does a reduced code with your archetype and rough levels reach us, and we do not store it.

Details in the privacy policy.

Research sources

The tests and the background on the test pages rely on these peer-reviewed studies. Figures are quoted as reported there.

  1. Marks D (1973). Visual imagery differences in the recall of pictures. British Journal of Psychology 64(1):17–24. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8295.1973.tb01322.x
  2. Pearson J, Clifford CWG, Tong F (2008). The functional impact of mental imagery on conscious perception. Current Biology 18(13):982–986. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2008.05.048
  3. 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
  4. Palombo DJ, Alain C, Söderlund H, Khuu W, Levine B (2015). Severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM) in healthy adults: A new mnemonic syndrome. Neuropsychologia 72:105–118. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.04.012
  5. 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
  6. Alderson-Day B, Mitrenga K, Wilkinson S, McCarthy-Jones S, Fernyhough C (2018). The varieties of inner speech questionnaire – Revised (VISQ-R): Replicating and refining links between inner speech and psychopathology. Consciousness and Cognition 65:48–58. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2018.07.001
  7. Keogh R, Pearson J (2018). The blind mind: No sensory visual imagery in aphantasia. Cortex 105:53–60. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2017.10.012
  8. 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
  9. 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
  10. 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
  11. 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
  12. Nedergaard JSK, Lupyan G (2024). Not Everybody Has an Inner Voice: Behavioral Consequences of Anendophasia. Psychological Science 35(7):780–797. doi:10.1177/09567976241243004
  13. 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
  14. 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

Mind Atlas and aphantasie.org

Mind Atlas is a profile across five dimensions of inner experience; the visual imagery test is one part of it. If you are looking specifically for an aphantasia test, our sister site aphantasie.org offers it, including the original VVIQ (Marks 1973).

Aphantasia test on aphantasie.org Opens in a new tab.

Who is responsible

Responsible: Onur Cirakoglu, founder of headon

Mind Atlas (mymindatlas.org) is a service by the agency headon.

Questions or corrections: hallo@headon.proImprint