Adam Zbynek James Zeman (born September 1957[1]) is a British neurologist, who coined the term "aphantasia" for an inability to create mental images.
[11] After several people (responding to an article on the MX case by Carl Zimmer)[9][10] reported that they had never been able to visualise, Zeman and his team (including Sergio Della Sala) conducted a survey of 21 people with a self-reported lifelong lack of visual imagery, using the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire developed by David Marks.
[2] They reported in 2015, finding that despite their inability to form mental images voluntarily, most of the respondents experienced involuntary imagery as "flashes" while awake or in dreams; that they have some difficulty recalling details of their own lives; that many have compensating verbal, mathematical and logical strengths; and that they successfully perform tasks that would normally involve visualisation, such as recalling visual details, by other strategies.
The project, funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council Innovation Award, explores visualisation from scientific and artistic perspectives.
[13] In 2019, the project organised the exhibition Extreme Imagination: Inside the Mind’s Eye, hosted at Tramway in Glasgow and the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter, which showcased works of art created by aphantasics and hyperphantasics.