Reply to Scholz et al

In our recent study¹, we investigated the neural basis of attempts at forming voluntary visual imagery in individuals with aphantasia and found that although these individuals lack visual imagery experience, their early visual cortex exhibits stable, content-specific activation patterns during imagery attempts. Unlike in the neurotypicals, these neural representations, however, differ from those evoked during perception, as indicated by the failure of cross-decoding between imagery and perceptual tasks. In this response, we address Scholz et al.'s commentary² on our findings and the broader implications for theories of unconscious imagery, emphasizing that while we do not claim the presence of unconscious imagery, our results suggest that early visual activity in aphantasia may reflect perceptual-like, but transformed or non-conscious, representations.