People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study
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Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study
#2"Not everyone can see pictures in their minds when they close their eyes and summon thoughts - an ability many of us take for granted."
I used to be into visualization as focus training. I can't "see" and change (move, change color) shapes in my mind at all. Artists I know claim to be able to do this. Obviously, Tesla (, Nikola) supposedly did this.
For those who can do it - to what degree can you do it? Can you imagine a circle? A cube? A rubix cube with color?
Edit: Since we are discussing this a lot - I am also a skilled lucid dreamer. In the sense that I trained myself for months to remember and control my dreams vividly. I realized my dreams have a "bandwidth limit" / "render limit". If I try to "look" at a detailed scene, it blurs and/or I wake up. Which, btw, is a huge argument against astral projection, not that anyone here likely ever even considered it to be real, but as a young child, I did.
Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study
#3I'm worried I have this but I'm not completely sure I do. My dreams are not very vivid at all and usually I just "know" that things are happening in them instead of vividly seeing what's going on.
However I can hear music very clearly in my head. If asked to visualize, say, an apple in my head I really don't see it very vividly at all. It's depressing if I'm being honest.
Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study
#4"Not everyone can see pictures in their minds when they close their eyes and summon thoughts - an ability many of us take for granted." I used to be into visualization as focus training. I can't "see" and change (move, change color) shapes in my mind at all. Artists I know claim to be able to do this. Obviously, Tesla (, Nikola) supposedly did this. For those who can do it - to what degree can you do it? Can you imag…
Temple Grandin claimed her visualization worked like the Star Trek holodeck, which is amazing. But then many people can easily manipulate verbal language in their minds. Some can do that with music.
Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study
#5How would you test such a condition? When I paint (bloody amateur) I certainly can imagine a generic tree or house or something specific like my house or my garden tree. The latter takes more form of an image, but it is still quite abstract. It is not really a picture, it is a memory and quite fleeting. But if I would see a real picture, I would go to the doc.
What do you mean they cannot conjure an image. If you ask them to draw a dog they come out blank?
Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study
#6"Not everyone can see pictures in their minds when they close their eyes and summon thoughts - an ability many of us take for granted." I used to be into visualization as focus training. I can't "see" and change (move, change color) shapes in my mind at all. Artists I know claim to be able to do this. Obviously, Tesla (, Nikola) supposedly did this. For those who can do it - to what degree can you do it? Can you imag…
Characters, structures, vehicles, robots, pretty much anything I would like to draw or design. With color (or at least enough awareness to know a certain shape or area is in a specific color).
I can also "listen" to music, unfortunately I'm really bad at creating new music so this skill is utterly useless for anything but remembering songs with just one listen or so.
At night before falling asleep it's pretty much like visualizing a movie, including motion and sound, the effect is somewhat stronger when eyes closed and not moving, I assume because "input" is mostly clear and thus doesn't conflict with whatever image you are conjuring mentally.
Seeing from other post, they say their dreams are pretty dull. My case is the opposite, my dreams are ridiculously vivid (including color, sound and touch) and there are very detailed environments and a lot of people moving around. I wonder if those things are related somehow?
EDIT: I have narcolepsy, perhaps that's a factor.
Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study
#7"Not everyone can see pictures in their minds when they close their eyes and summon thoughts - an ability many of us take for granted." I used to be into visualization as focus training. I can't "see" and change (move, change color) shapes in my mind at all. Artists I know claim to be able to do this. Obviously, Tesla (, Nikola) supposedly did this. For those who can do it - to what degree can you do it? Can you imag…
Yes, and there are no real limits to this. I can picture a Rubik's cube dominating the Manhattan skyline. I can also picture abstract images with no connection to the real world, that have emotions associated with them.
I believe my wife cannot make images, and the differences between us that result are pretty wild. I'm dramatically better with directions and maps because she can't make a mental model of the map and how it relates to the real world. However she's very aware of her emotions in a given moment where it's very difficult for me to express how I'm feeling.
Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study
#8"Not everyone can see pictures in their minds when they close their eyes and summon thoughts - an ability many of us take for granted." I used to be into visualization as focus training. I can't "see" and change (move, change color) shapes in my mind at all. Artists I know claim to be able to do this. Obviously, Tesla (, Nikola) supposedly did this. For those who can do it - to what degree can you do it? Can you imag…
I can, but colours never seem as vivid in my mind as when I look at them directly, like I can imagine a red apple but it's like a faded red. I've always found this mildly frustrating.
Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study
#9Makes sense. I’d like to see an experiment done with reading comprehension as well as real memories. When I read something, I hear and see it. I’m reading it out loud in my mind and I either have instant visual associations with certain words (e.g. when I read the word aphantasia I think of the hippo from Fantasia, when I see the word tea I instantly ‘see’ a teacup) or I visualise the scene (like where they have the quote from the man who can’t imagine music, I ‘see’ and ‘hear’ it like it’s a TV interview). So I suspect I’m going to remember it better than someone who purely reads the text - but maybe not! Maybe people who don’t do all the ‘translation’ work to turn text into audio/visuals will in fact turn out to be MORE efficient at remembering.
I have no idea how reading would work without at least hearing it though. If you told me to read without doing this stuff it would be like telling me to think without having thoughts. Impossible.
Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study
#10"Not everyone can see pictures in their minds when they close their eyes and summon thoughts - an ability many of us take for granted." I used to be into visualization as focus training. I can't "see" and change (move, change color) shapes in my mind at all. Artists I know claim to be able to do this. Obviously, Tesla (, Nikola) supposedly did this. For those who can do it - to what degree can you do it? Can you imag…
As complete as it needs to be. I can see and hear my imaginings quite clearly, and often use mechanical analogues to test non-directly visualisable abstract ideas and logical flows.
In more general terms, I can see and explore real and imagined environments, and listen to music with perfect fidelity - although doing the hearing bit only works well with considerable focus, and peace and quiet - visual I find easy enough to just ignore what my eyes are seeing, leave walking or whatever on autopilot. To be clear, it’s not like just imagining a thing, it’s more like overriding a sense. When I visualise, I am literally looking at something that isn’t there, when I listen, I hear as though it’s real - although any real noise immediately breaks it.