These results reopen the debate. I suggest the idea of a dual-process model (a depictive system for imagers and a symbolic system for aphantasics) or, alternatively, a single model that is fundamentally symbolic, with the depictive dimension as an optional enrichment.

New findings: People with aphantasia (alteration of mental imagery) still show brain activity in visual areas. Recent 7T fMRI studies decoded activity in V1-V3 in aphantasics from perception and residual imagined movements.

The classic debate of mental imagery: Are mental images picture-like (Kosslyn) or abstract/symbolic (Pylyshyn)? Pearson and Kosslyn (2015) suggested that advances in neuroimaging studies closed the debate, supporting the depictive, picture-like, theory.