People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study • Hacker News Board

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#51

Post by falsaberN1 » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 3:32 PM UTC

3f34f34f wrote: post #20

raxxorrax wrote: post #5

How 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…

I think most people and journalists who speak about aphantasia are exaggerating or misleading others. If you actually are able to imagine an picture with your eyes open and have it cover the real world, that's called hallucinating. Some people can visualise things stronger than others, some cannot at all, but let's not pretend like actual visualisation (hallucinating) is the norm or that more than a few people on ear…

I never heard of aphantasia before but having read a bit about it, doesn't seem to be the same thing. When I "see" things mentally it's not like it "takes over" my visual input, nor it has weight in the real world. The image seems to be "nowhere", like when dreaming. Closing my eyes doesn't really make the image clearer by itself, it's more like there's no visual input to interrupt my visualization and that's what makes it "clearer".

If I mentally listen to music it's clearly not coming from my ears (in fact the whole concept of sound direction doesn't seem to exist when I imagine sound. No stereo separation either.)

I find this whole stuff fascinating though. I wish there was some way to measure and/or capture those images/sounds and make them physical data, even if once captured it turns out to be a lot less detailed than what it seems. It'd be a security nightmare though!

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#52

Post by cortic » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 3:47 PM UTC

jjk166 wrote: post #29

3f34f34f wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one on earth can 'visualise' an image in their head as if they were seeing it in real life. This entire fiasco is just people on different spectrums of mental picturing that are freaking out because they are misinterpreting what aphantasia is. I assure you you are most likely normal, and it's common to not recite a sentence word for word or picture an object perfectly. Others can do it very well. Just like you can…

Plenty of people can visualize an image in their head as if they are seeing it in real life. As one of those people, trust me that if your brain is set up to work that way, it's pretty difficult to imagine any other way of picturing the world. Likewise there are plenty of people who honestly can't picture things in their mind at all. The fact that you are towards the middle of the spectrum does not mean the extremes…

Its likly to be largely an illusion; There was a talk from a neurologist years ago, when he demonstrated that mental images don't act like real images.

If you picture something like a pirate, and someone asked you about the scene, eg; what color are his trousers, what kind of shirt.. You will get a question that you don't instantly know, your mind will quickly 'colour/paint in' so you can answer, but the important part is that you didn't notice that bit was missing before you were asked, which is not now a real picture acts - you would have noticed the pirate had no trouser without needing to be asked about them.

eye-sight itself is an illusion to some degree, eyes don't send images, they send data that is re-assembled into a construct of abstractions, aka you don't see a cup until you know its a cup. there are a lot of optical illusions that exploit this.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#53

Post by cortic » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 4:05 PM UTC

plutonorm wrote: post #46

jjk166 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people can visualize an image in their head as if they are seeing it in real life. As one of those people, trust me that if your brain is set up to work that way, it's pretty difficult to imagine any other way of picturing the world. Likewise there are plenty of people who honestly can't picture things in their mind at all. The fact that you are towards the middle of the spectrum does not mean the extremes…

So you can draw photo realistic impressions of those memories? Come on now. I can visualise pretty vividly, but I know that my memory is conning me, the textures and details are the feelings of textures and details. If I actually interrogate the visualisation the detail is not there. It's like trying to read writing in a dream, you imagine that it's perfect because the feeling is the same, but try to actually read -…

>the detail is not there.

Usually no, but (anecdote); I cannot normally remember my credit card number, dreaming years ago i read the number aloud and when i woke i could remember the numbers that i had recited in the dream, i checked and they were correct... So at least sometimes in dreams the detail is real.

I have a theory that memory recollection is linked to social impulses, that our minds forget things on purpose (without our knowledge lol) as a tool for social integration. I've seen some indirect evidence of this in some sports, where people tend to be just about as good at a sport as their social peers, change social peers and they become better or worse accordingly. -this would have interesting implications for aphantasia treatment.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#54

Post by jjk166 » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 4:37 PM UTC

plutonorm wrote: post #46

jjk166 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people can visualize an image in their head as if they are seeing it in real life. As one of those people, trust me that if your brain is set up to work that way, it's pretty difficult to imagine any other way of picturing the world. Likewise there are plenty of people who honestly can't picture things in their mind at all. The fact that you are towards the middle of the spectrum does not mean the extremes…

So you can draw photo realistic impressions of those memories? Come on now. I can visualise pretty vividly, but I know that my memory is conning me, the textures and details are the feelings of textures and details. If I actually interrogate the visualisation the detail is not there. It's like trying to read writing in a dream, you imagine that it's perfect because the feeling is the same, but try to actually read -…

Well I can't draw anything very well, but I can see in my mind a photo-realistic image indistinguishable from what I am perceiving in real time. No matter to what degree I interrogate it, I find no discrepancies with the real world. Everything I revisit is exactly as I remember it. I can read text in my dreams. I can make arbitrary changes to whatever I visualize and project them onto the real world as if my eyes were seeing it for real.

Compare your memory of, say, song lyrics - you might misremember some of the words but that doesn't mean your memory of the lyrics aren't real, you are remembering a real and coherent set of words, not making them up as you go. When you hear that song again and you know what word is coming up next that is not your mind conning you, that is just successful recall. Likewise you probably know the melody of the song; though you might not be able to transcribe it, you would immediately notice if even a single note was off. More impressive, you can probably correctly identify a song you haven't heard in years from a fraction of a second long sample. If you show me some tiny portion of a photograph of something I've seen before, I will similarly be able to identify it instantly.

I used to think that everyone experienced the world the same way as I did. Personally, as a visual person, I found graphs to be the most intuitive way of conveying information. How could anyone not understand a graph? But my brother can't make heads or tails of them. He's an incredibly intelligent person, but he fundamentally does not process and store information visually. I've met many other people who can think in ways I can't, such as people who can think visualize objects in 4 dimensions.

If you want further evidence that thought processing is not constant across different people, consider that it is not even constant over a single lifetime. What language do you process language in? If you learn a second language, most people, myself included, eventually reach a point where you can think in that second language without using your primary language as a mediator. The brain is simultaneously incredibly powerful and incredibly plastic. Entire regions can be repurposed to function in radically different ways. All evidence points to extreme variability in how our individual minds work.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#55

Post by jjk166 » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 5:11 PM UTC

cortic wrote: post #52

jjk166 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people can visualize an image in their head as if they are seeing it in real life. As one of those people, trust me that if your brain is set up to work that way, it's pretty difficult to imagine any other way of picturing the world. Likewise there are plenty of people who honestly can't picture things in their mind at all. The fact that you are towards the middle of the spectrum does not mean the extremes…

Its likly to be largely an illusion; There was a talk from a neurologist years ago, when he demonstrated that mental images don't act like real images. If you picture something like a pirate, and someone asked you about the scene, eg; what color are his trousers, what kind of shirt.. You will get a question that you don't instantly know, your mind will quickly 'colour/paint in' so you can answer, but the important pa…

Look at your computer screen. Really take it in. Where is the banner? Where is the exit button?

What is the color of your underwear?

Perhaps you will remember what color underwear you put on this morning, perhaps you will check, but it would be pretty weird if your underwear's color was constantly on your mind. Nevertheless, I doubt you would argue that your underwear did not have color while you weren't thinking of it.

Now open up an image of a pirate on your screen. Click on the window and drag it down until the bottom half is off the screen. What color are the pirate's trousers? The computer is only displaying a portion of the image, so technically the pirate's trousers don't exist. But nevertheless the data in the image file would suggest that the pirate does in fact have trousers of a certain color, even if that color is just a number.

You are correct that visual memory does not work like a photograph, but why would it? Your eyes don't send photographs via mail to a little post office in your head, your vision is a means of processing the signals of huge numbers of neurons firing together. Visual processing ought to the same circuits in the brain as vision, the fact that it behaves like vision is evidence that those circuits really are in use.

Of course what I imagine is an illusion, no one is proposing that simply by imagining an object it will manifest in reality. The point is that it is exactly the same sort of illusion as the one that my brain makes when I see real things, and thus my perception of my visual thoughts is the same as my perception of the visible world.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#56

Post by falsaberN1 » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

3f34f34f wrote: post #38

JshWright wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're the one exaggerating here... I don't see anyone claiming that they are "able to imagine an picture with [their] eyes open and have it cover the real world". You specified "eyes open". Are you able to visualize things with your eyes closed?

I can't close my eyes and imprint a picture over my closed eyelids as if i was watching a movie. If you could imprint an image over your closed eyes, logic dictates you would be able to do the same in a dark room since light is the only difference between open and closed eyes. But I don't think people are having vivid and realistic hallucinations in the dark. Regardless, the way journalists talk about aphantasia, or…

Yes, closing your eyes and being in a dark room has the same effect (to me at least). As I mentioned in another reply I think it's simply because there's no visual input to process so your mind can focus on images better/more efficiently. After all a decent amount of processing comes from visual input, I figure that's what makes stuff like a Rorschach test or cloudgazing to be a thing, or certain optical illusions. You are parsing what you see and the brain takes some licenses for speed at times.

It's clear everyone is hardwired to see stuff like faces in something as simple as ":)", I feel it's related, but it's not my field, I can only wonder.

Is there any science done on this particular topic? It sure is super interesting but all I see about it is anecdote or very surface level stuff. It's clear some people do it better than others (my anecdata seems to indicate creative types might tap into it better?), but since most people is also affected by certain optical effects or tricks, the ability has to be present in everyone to a degree. Might be a thing that needs to be exploited consciously to make it "vivid".

It could also be a matter of priorities in perception. Like some people remembers lyrics better than songs, or numbers better than images. Maybe we are just taking our vision of the world in the way that's the most comfortable, and for some people it's images/sounds and for others "plaintext" information.

I know I really got a thing for visual information, as I can tell stuff like typos not from reading a word, but from noticing its shape is "off", like I'm remembering a printout of the word instead of the word character-by-character. (note that difference in typesetting does not affect the "shape" to throw me off. Unless it's very weird handwritten text, but that throws everyone off)

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#57

Post by 3f34f34f » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

falsaberN1 wrote: post #56

3f34f34f wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't close my eyes and imprint a picture over my closed eyelids as if i was watching a movie. If you could imprint an image over your closed eyes, logic dictates you would be able to do the same in a dark room since light is the only difference between open and closed eyes. But I don't think people are having vivid and realistic hallucinations in the dark. Regardless, the way journalists talk about aphantasia, or…

Yes, closing your eyes and being in a dark room has the same effect (to me at least). As I mentioned in another reply I think it's simply because there's no visual input to process so your mind can focus on images better/more efficiently. After all a decent amount of processing comes from visual input, I figure that's what makes stuff like a Rorschach test or cloudgazing to be a thing, or certain optical illusions. Y…

I'm talking about literally seeing the image, not being able to better internally visualise the image in the dark. If you are able to literally see images in the dark as if light was bouncing off of them, that's hallucinating and I don't think we're talking about the same thing then. If you are actually able to hallucinate on command I'd be very surprised.

That would be like lucid dreaming while awake and I'd imagine it would be more well documented considering half of this thread claims to be able to do it. Actually, why are so many people trying to lucid dream at all if this level of visualisation is so common?

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#58

Post by JshWright » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 6:25 PM UTC

3f34f34f wrote: post #57

falsaberN1 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, closing your eyes and being in a dark room has the same effect (to me at least). As I mentioned in another reply I think it's simply because there's no visual input to process so your mind can focus on images better/more efficiently. After all a decent amount of processing comes from visual input, I figure that's what makes stuff like a Rorschach test or cloudgazing to be a thing, or certain optical illusions. Y…

I'm talking about literally seeing the image, not being able to better internally visualise the image in the dark. If you are able to literally see images in the dark as if light was bouncing off of them, that's hallucinating and I don't think we're talking about the same thing then. If you are actually able to hallucinate on command I'd be very surprised. That would be like lucid dreaming while awake and I'd imagine…

As far as I can tell, you're the only one moving the goalpost from "internally visualize" to "actually see the object manifested in front of you".

I don't think anyone is claiming that the latter is widespread, and I also don't think you're acknowledging that there are many people who can't do the former at all (myself included).

If you ask me to imagine something, there is no visual component to that at all for me. Internally, externally, nowhere.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#59

Post by xthestreams » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 6:28 PM UTC

falsaberN1 wrote: post #48

Tor3 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general my dreams have duller images than reality, but I had a dream many decades ago, after a half-dramatic winter day in the mountains - when sleeping in the tent that night I was dreaming about a summer day where I walked over the top of a hill, and in front of me was a valley with an old road, and fields of yellow flowers as far as I could see. What was special was that it was extremely sharp and vivid, much m…

That's interesting. Dreams always were a very interesting topic to me, so I like to hear stuff like this. For me that's usually kinda how it goes. My dreams are usually rather mundane, borderline formulaic, although at times I can recognize places from my past that are altered (a little or a lot), or it's cleaner/with different materials or stuff like that. A thing that amuses me and seems to be uncommon, at least fr…

I guess you are well aware of the concept of lucid dreaming?

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#60

Post by plutonorm » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 6:34 PM UTC

jjk166 wrote: post #54

plutonorm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you can draw photo realistic impressions of those memories? Come on now. I can visualise pretty vividly, but I know that my memory is conning me, the textures and details are the feelings of textures and details. If I actually interrogate the visualisation the detail is not there. It's like trying to read writing in a dream, you imagine that it's perfect because the feeling is the same, but try to actually read -…

Well I can't draw anything very well, but I can see in my mind a photo-realistic image indistinguishable from what I am perceiving in real time. No matter to what degree I interrogate it, I find no discrepancies with the real world. Everything I revisit is exactly as I remember it. I can read text in my dreams. I can make arbitrary changes to whatever I visualize and project them onto the real world as if my eyes wer…

Ok I kinda believe you. But I do not understand why you wouldn't be able to draw perfectly. Why can you not simply overlay what you see with you're minds eye over the real world? I do this when I am drawing, that's why I'm not a bad drawer. And it's also how I know the limitations of my visualisation. As I learn to draw, say, faces better, the detail and accuracy of my visualisation improves.