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Dr Reshanne Reeder

@kerblooee.bsky.social
584 followers 417 following 395 posts

Cognitive scientist, mom, citizen of the world. Interested in mental imagery extremes and divergent perception. Got a cool theory or 2. The "Ganzflicker Lady" reshannereeder.com

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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
3/3. Combined, our studies suggest that both extremes of imagery respond unpredictably to therapeutic mental imagery techniques and experience mental health symptoms differently from typical. Therefore, both need more attention in mental health research!
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
2/3. Hyperphantasics actually have a similarly difficult time with these techniques as aphantasics - but in a different way. While aphantasics struggle to visualize, hyperphantasics struggle to control their intense visualizations for therapeutic purposes.
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
1/3. We thought that because having mental imagery seems to help with common therapeutic techniques like guided imagery or imagery restructuring, perhaps having hyperphantasia helps you to be especially receptive to these techniques. But this is NOT what we found!
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Complementary to my earlier study on mental health/care in aphantasia, a study of hyperphantasia. The results may surprise you! Mental health consequences of extremely vivid mental imagery: A qualitative investigation of managing anxiety with hyperphantasia: osf.io/preprints/ps...
osf.io
Mental health consequences of extremely vivid mental imagery: A qualitative investigation of managing anxiety with hyperphantasia
Mental imagery is the ability to mentally simulate sensory experience in the absence of an external stimulus, with individual vividness ranging from extremely weak or absent (aphantasia) to superlativ...
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Sounds like everything is going to shit at the same time...
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Reposted by Dr Reshanne Reeder
Times Higher Education (THE) @timeshighered.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Growing pressure on probationary staff to win grants represents ‘material divergence’ from agreed policies, argue UCU leaders. @jgro-the.bsky.social reports #research #highered #UCU #academicsky www.timeshighereducation.com/news/r…
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Andrea Floris, I don't know.who you are, but thank you for writing this. I hope it reaches the people who need to read it! www.linkedin.com/posts/andrea...
UK academics should stop being "managed" by managers, who are, with very few exceptions, mediocre, incompetent, and with no academic vision. When I tell foreign colleagues and friends what happens in our universities, they are speechless. Managers who earn far more than £100k per year, who do not listen to academics, who patronise them as they were their children. I have recently seen full professors being dismissed in ridiculous top-down "meetings", where the manager expects only questions and not ideas.  Managers who jeopardise the lives of staff and their families, determining the closure of entire departments. Managers who all speak the very same language, mumbling about "reshaping the future" or "transforming the University into agile institutions", and who want to "create universities of the 21st century in a rapidly changing times".  You hear these bs from all of them, without exception. To cover cuts and redundancies. They are unable to even tell the truth, or describe things as they are, providing a bad example to our young students, who then think that an ethical behaviour, also in language, is not necessary. *These* managers are failing, not the academics. Managerialism is the single most important reason for stress in UK universities, in what would otherwise be a fantastic job where you teach young people and do your research. Until this is fully understood, even by academics themselves, the decline of the UK academic will contunue and a collapse is inevitable.
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Another aphantasia face memory preprint just dropped - an impressive mega-study led by Varg Koenigsmark! The Role of Visual Imagery in Face Recognition and Confidence Revisited: New Evidence from Aphantasia, Sampling Context Effects, and a Meta-Analysis www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
The Role of Visual Imagery in Face Recognition and Confidence Revisited: New Evidence from Aphantasia, Sampling Context Effects, and a Meta-Analysis
The absence of voluntary visual imagery, known as aphantasia, offers a unique lens into the role of visual imagery in visual memory processes such as face recognition. While aphantasics often report d...
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Grant writing season
static.klipy.com
Hamilton: Writing Scene from Broadway
ALT: Hamilton: Writing Scene from Broadway
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
In the same breath as your admittance that self report may be all we have for now, you still propose the "pragmatic assumption" is that everyone's experience is actually the same. That doesn't sound like good-faith support of self report, and if that's misrepresenting your stance I'll eat my hat
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
"...there are legitimate reasons to doubt even highly confident imagery self-report". There are quotes in your paper for everyone, it seems!
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Reposted by Dr Reshanne Reeder
Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Humans are not black boxes. Experience is everything. This is not a definition problem. This is a "completely ignoring human experience" problem. Some things cannot be measured objectively (yet). Until then, qualitative evidence is the most important evidence we have.
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Humans are not black boxes. Experience is everything. This is not a definition problem. This is a "completely ignoring human experience" problem. Some things cannot be measured objectively (yet). Until then, qualitative evidence is the most important evidence we have.
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Z: Instruction: Imagine a horse. "I can become the horse."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Y: "For sleeping you count sheep. The problem was...I'd imagine sheep jumping over, but then my thoughts would run away with this and I would...have things pop in...there might be a wolf...or there might be goats...and it would be a problem with me controlling these things."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
X: "I don’t think I have like a terrible memory, but I don’t trust everything because I do think some memories that I have might be imaginations."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
W: "I would say my consciousness is much less...less connected to my body...than a lot of people... so when I talk about, oh you know, what if you could be a cyborg, I’m like, hell yeah, sign me up, because like, to me, what’s going on in my head is like so much more interesting."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
V: "I have like a whole city that I'll dream inside of, and I have like the entire mental landscape of the city, and so I can, like, place my dreams in it."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
U: "What it is like for me, reading books... I create all the places described, and I can like, it’s like I see it all, and then looking back, even books I’ve read, oh, years ago- I can like see these places like kind of a memory."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
T: P3 created a mental box to house traumatic and anxious imagery. She had trepidation about the images coming back if she were to engage with them: “I wouldn’t want to use [the boxes] again because then it would remind me, and I’d visualise what I went through if I was to think about that box."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
S: P6 found mental images too realistic, and so could not tolerate interacting with them: "I think if I spoke to the Gothic horrors, then, then they might (laughs), think they might slip across and become real. I know that they wouldn’t, but that would be a really bad idea."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
R: "As a child I had such vivid- they weren’t even night terrors...they were imaginings. And I used to pretend that they were nightmares because I knew that you were allowed to get distressed by a nightmare, but if you were awake and seeing horrible things, then it was naughty to...make a fuss."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Q: "It can feel quite dangerous sometimes to imagine something awful happening because I feel as if I’ve made it [happen for real]."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
P: "Both me and my daughter can’t cope with reading fiction...It’s always too intense. Always. The feelings, the emotions...it’s so intense, and it’s more intense in a book than watching a film...at least with the film, it’s someone else’s, and I can switch it off."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
O: On having a fantasy world in their head: "There’s no responsibility at all in that world. There’s no pressure from anybody else because nobody else...no expectation...it really does...have an emotional effect on me."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
N: Several participants had well-established inner worlds that they could step into and control at whim. P5 steps into a dystopian world, where it is just him and his dog. “It’s been like therapy for me in some ways. Because it's the one place that I’m safe...because I genuinely control everything."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
M: "To be able to be so vividly imaginative and...actually go off into that world...I’m quite poor. My world is very small. I live alone. My children have grown up and they live far away...But...I don’t lack for company (chuckles) because...I can have it all going on, within me."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
K: All participants expressed having an inner world with no limits to it. "It’s just literally being able to do anything... I would like to say, limitless in some ways." L: "it’s kind of constantly fun ... you never need to get bored because you can ... do anything."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
J: Participants struggled with how not to be overwhelmed by negative memories. "How do you make that happen ... if the reality of those experiences is still there?"
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
I: "This would leave participants weary of thinking about the past because “if I go too deep ... they become really distressing because I’m right back... I know exactly how that situation was on every sensory level, and so I ... keep things at arm’s length."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
H: "I've always felt like (said slowly) like part of the reason I struggle with difficult situations is because of, (pause) the- the video, like realistic, constant playing out in my head of events and times and this sort of never ever being able to forget because it’s always very, very real."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
G: "People with really vivid imagination keep reliving things, keep remembering and seeing them." All participants reported slipping into memories against their will and being overwhelmed by them as though experiencing flashbacks.
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
F: "Once I've seen the thing, I cannot get it out of my mind. So, for years afterwards, I’ll be revisiting that scene ... it’s become as part of my kind of fabric of my thinking ... and it’s impossible to get rid of it."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
E: "I find myself just distressed a lot, and a lot of the distress is not being able to switch that off, not being able to stop it being so vivid. I don't really mean switch it off, I mean, stop it being quite as vivid, because if it was just taken down a few notches, it would seem more positive."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
D: "I don’t like the intrusive stuff, like...a spider (disgusted expression)...I can see it. I can feel it. I can (shaking head)...it’s too much and it’s always negative stuff. That’s [the] part I don’t like (head shake)–because my imagination is so vivid, it just-it goes beyond- goes too far."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Exhibit C: P1, P4, and P7 noted how they could picture a relaxing beach scene which is often used in guided imagery, but that the imagery detracted from the relaxation, and was "unhelpful ... because it’s so real."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Exhibit B: "It’s always too real and feels too physically painful."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Exhibit A: "It’s in here (pointing to head). Which is why it sounds wrong to say I can see it, (quote gesture with fingers) but ... the thing in my head (tapping head) is the same as the thing out there."
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
"...there are legitimate reasons to doubt even highly confident imagery self-report". link.springer.com/article/10.3... Ahem - enjoy this alphabet of hyperphantasia! Exhibit A: ...
link.springer.com
Mental image vividness and aphantasia judgements are fundamentally compromised by overlooked definition problems - Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
Vividness judgements are intended to capture variance in the axis that uniquely separates the experience of a mental image from other unambiguously sensory perceptual experiences, and from a completel...
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
This is such an amazing and comprehensive resource on the research related to mental imagery up to 2014. Does anyone know how to contact Nigel J T Thomas, or have any information on him since 2014? He seems to have disappeared, I can't even find an obituary... plato.stanford.edu/archives/fal...
plato.stanford.edu
Mental Imagery (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Fall 2021 Edition)
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
Individuals with aphantasia show independent impairments in face perception and face memory, but not face matching By the wonderful Zoe Pounder et al: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Individuals with aphantasia show independent impairments in face perception and face memory, but not face matching
Some individuals with aphantasia, an absent or reduced ability to form visual imagery, report face recognition difficulties, and studies have shown ap…
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Very excited to get started on this multi-lab intl collab investigating the role of mental imagery, schizotypy, and sensory sensitivity in visual perception! With @mmonzel.bsky.social, @tesvlee.bsky.social, @katechristodoulou.bsky.social, and Raquel Krempel: rr.peercommunityin.org/PCIRegistere...
rr.peercommunityin.org
A comprehensive, multi-lab visual illusion test battery will exa...
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
The business model of higher education is real, and it's depressing for academics who have a love for knowledge and see the greedy leaders at the top who just see the bottom line. Students and staff suffer under this model. If you think it's all fine, you've got your head in the sand.
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
The business model of higher education is real, and it's depressing for academics who have a love for knowledge and see the greedy leaders at the top who just see the bottom line. Students and staff suffer under this model. If you think it's all fine, you've got your head in the sand.
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
So @mmonzel.bsky.social read my bsky thread and proposed we extend these ideas into a theory paper - and thus, this preprint was born! A unifying theory of aphantasia: Aphantasia as the inability to disengage from the external environment osf.io/preprints/ps...
osf.io
OSF
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
When you have a feedback section at the end of your study and the person just writes "dope" 👌😁
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
From the article: "The ability to conjure mental imagery is a key aspect of being human." This is amusing, because I literally have a paper under review titled "mental imagery is not essential to being human" 🤣
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
Paper now published in Neuroscience of Consciousness and led by @chkhaidze.bsky.social: From dots to faces: individual differences in visual imagery capacity predict the content of Ganzflicker-induced hallucinations academic.oup.com/nc/article/2...
academic.oup.com
From dots to faces: individual differences in visual imagery capacity predict the content of Ganzflicker-induced hallucinations
Abstract. A rapidly alternating red and black display known as Ganzflicker induces visual hallucinations that reflect the generative capacity of the visual
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Reposted by Dr Reshanne Reeder
Stephen Turner @stephenturner.us · 03/05/2026
Free and open-source images, icons, and tools for creating scientific illustrations doi.org/10.59350/5zt... 🧪
doi.org
Free and open-source images, icons, and tools for creating scientific illustrations
Phylopic, NIH Bioart, Bioicons, Scidraw, Open Science Art, Health Icons, Servier Medical Art, Biodiversity Heritage Library, the Noun Project, Segment Anything, Excalidraw, draw.io, Biographics
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