Most flashcard app reviews were written by people without aphantasia, for people without aphantasia. The advice to use mental imagery, create vivid scenes, and build memory palaces runs through almost all of them. If you have aphantasia, this advice ranges from useless to actively counterproductive. You need a different framework for evaluating study tools.
The honest starting point is that aphantasic people can learn and remember just as well as visualizers. The research is clear on this. The difference is in the strategies that work. Verbal encoding, semantic networks, procedural practice, and external spatial layouts are all available to aphantasic learners. What is not available is internal mental imagery, which means tools that depend on it need to be either avoided or used differently.
This guide covers the main flashcard and study tools from an aphantasia-specific perspective, focusing on which tools use cognitive strategies that are actually available to you.
The distinction that matters most for aphantasic learners is between tools that use internal spatial memory (memory palaces, visualization mnemonics) and tools that use external spatial layouts (visible grids, organized lists, structured diagrams). Internal spatial tools require mental imagery and are generally inaccessible to aphantasic learners. External spatial tools work through perception rather than imagination and are fully accessible.
Anki and Quizlet are neither: they're primarily sequential and verbal, which means they work without visualization but also don't leverage spatial memory in either form. Gridually specifically uses external spatial layout. The grid is always visible on screen, positions are always concrete, and the spatial relationships are available through sight rather than imagination. For aphantasic learners who want to use spatial encoding, this is the only tool designed around that approach.
For vocabulary and factual recall: Anki is strong, Quizlet works for convenience, and both are compatible with aphantasic learning strategies. The spaced repetition algorithm does not care how you encode the information. It just ensures you review things at the right intervals.
For structured information like taxonomies, paradigms, and related concepts: grid-based tools like Gridually are worth trying. The external spatial layout encodes relationships through screen position, which is available to aphantasic learners in a way that mentally constructed layouts are not. If linear card review has felt like it does not capture the structure of what you are learning, spatial grids offer a different approach. The mental imagery techniques you have been told to use are only one implementation of spatial memory. Physical grids are another, and they do not require visualization.
Spatial memory is intact in aphantasia. People with aphantasia remember where things are just as well as everyone else (Bainbridge et al., 2021, Cortex).
Non-visual spatial strategies are as effective as visual strategies for memory (Monzel et al., 2024, Cognition).
Spatial memory is more durable over time than object memory (Megla & Bainbridge, 2025, Cognition).
The Method of Loci works because of spatial placement, not visualization (Caplan et al., 2019, QJEP).
College students with aphantasia achieve equal or higher grades using compensatory strategies like spatial anchoring (Taylor & Laming, 2025, Frontiers in Psychology).
Anki and Quizlet work for aphantasic learners on verbal and semantic material. For structured, relational information where spatial encoding would help, Gridually uses external visible grids rather than mental imagery. It is the only major study tool designed specifically around external spatial memory, which makes it worth trying if other approaches have felt incomplete. Gridually's spatial encoding is based on memory research from the University of Chicago, University of Bonn, and Macquarie University.
Yes. People with aphantasia can learn effectively with flashcards - research shows aphantasic students achieve comparable or higher academic results. The key is using techniques that do not require mental imagery. Spatial memory based on external layouts (remembering positions on a screen) works without visualization.
Gridually is the only major flashcard app designed specifically around external spatial memory, which works without mental imagery. Its approach uses position and location as memory anchors on a visible grid, not mental images. Other apps like Anki and Quizlet work too since they are verbal and semantic, but they do not actively leverage spatial encoding.
Yes. Spatial memory and visual imagery are different cognitive systems. You know where your phone is right now without forming a mental picture of it. Gridually uses this position-based memory, not image-based memory. People with aphantasia typically have intact spatial memory.
Research identifies several effective strategies: spatial encoding (placing information at fixed locations), verbal processing, externalization through list-making, and anchoring to familiar references (Taylor & Laming, 2025; Hinwar & Petkov, 2025). Gridually combines spatial encoding with spaced repetition - both proven effective for aphantasic learners.
Traditional memory palaces require visualization, which is difficult or impossible with aphantasia. However, the Method of Loci works primarily because of spatial placement, not visualization (Caplan et al., 2019). Gridually provides an externalized memory palace - a fixed grid where every item has a position - that works without any mental imagery.