What do you see when you recall your happiest moments? Do you see images of your smiling family and friends, and picture the scene with almost photographic clarity in your mind’s eye?
What about when someone tells you a scary story? Does your mind conjure a vivid image of a zombie shuffling towards you through the cobwebbed corridors of an abandoned house?
Between 1 and 5 per cent of people have a condition where they cannot create images or visualise things in their mind’s eye. A study has found that this has the disadvantage of making it harder to remember key moments from their lives, but that it comes with the advantage of making people less likely to be frightened by scary stories.
Researchers at
