Title : Neural mechanisms linking multilingualism to stronger visual imagery and lower aphantasia prevalence
Abstract:
Aphantasia, the inability to voluntarily generate visual mental imagery, affects approximately 3.9% of the general population. While extensive research has documented multilingualism's positive effects on executive function and neuroplasticity, its potential influence on visual imagery capacity remains poorly understood. This study investigated this relationship in 302 adolescents (aged 16-18) using the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ), with participants stratified by language fluency. The results revealed a strong positive correlation between multilingualism and visual imagery vividness (R² = 0.969, p < 0.001), with VVIQ scores increasing significantly with each additional fluent language. Monolingual participants averaged 49.4 points, compared to 63.0 for quadrilingual individuals. Notably, 80% of participants scoring in the aphantasia range (≤32) were monolingual, while no individuals fluent in more than two languages fell below this threshold.
Neurocognitive mechanisms potentially underlying these findings include: (1) enhanced resting-state functional connectivity between language-processing regions (left inferior frontal gyrus) and visual networks (occipital cortex), as supported by existing fMRI literature; (2) increased gray matter density in executive control regions known to mediate both language switching and mental imagery; and (3) strengthened cross-modal integration through continuous visuo-linguistic mapping during multilingual communication. These mechanisms collectively suggest that multilingual experience may reinforce neural pathways supporting visual imagery generation.
This research suggests that multilingualism may serve as a protective factor against aphantasia and other imagery deficits through neuroplastic adaptations in visuo-linguistic networks. The findings advance our understanding of individual differences in mental imagery capacity and open new avenues for investigating the cognitive benefits of language learning. Future studies should employ neuroimaging techniques to directly compare neural activity patterns during imagery tasks across language groups and explore potential therapeutic applications for imagery-related cognitive impairments.
