Is aphantasia a neurodevelopmental condition? Evidence from face recognition and developmental prosopagnosia

Developmental aphantasia is characterised by an absence of visual mental imagery, with many researchers concluding that it is not a disorder. However, impairments in facial identity processing and elevated cooccurrence with developmental prosopagnosia (i.e., lifelong troubles recognising faces) are common in neurodevelopmental conditions, such as autism and developmental coordination disorder. If aphantasia were to exhibit similar characteristics, then it would support claims that it too may be a neurodevelopmental condition. Confirming this hypothesis, aphantasia was associated with a greatly increased cooccurrence of developmental prosopagnosia (i.e., 14-36%) in contrast to the general population (i.e., ~2-3%). As a group, those with aphantasia exhibited objective problems in holistic perception, unfamiliar face memory, and familiar face recognition. In a second study, we found qualitatively similar patterns of face processing issues between aphantasia and developmental coordination disorder. We propose that these problems, coupled with an elevated prevalence of prosopagnosia, could be a transdiagnostic feature of some neurodevelopmental conditions, rather than a condition specific occurrence. In a final study, we tested whether aphantasia prevalence was elevated within developmental prosopagnosia; strikingly, 16% of these cases were aphantasic, in contrast to the 4% reported in the general population. Aphantasia’s higher cooccurrence with developmental prosopagnosia, and comparable patterns of face processing difficulties to developmental coordination disorder, confirm its status as a neurodevelopmental condition should be reconsidered.