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

#111

Post by Arelius » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 2:17 AM UTC

defen wrote: post #47

silveroriole wrote: post #9

Makes 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…

I have aphantasia. When reading I also don't "hear" the words (although I am capable, if I choose, of mentally simulating auditory input in a way for which I have no corresponding capability for visual input). I think I read much faster than average and have extremely high reading comprehension and recall for written material. Funny story: one benefit of not being able to visualize things is that I'm never disappoint…

Your description of being capable of simulating "hearing the words" resonates with me.

When I think about it more, I think I almost feel the sounds on my tongue, which is to say, when I try to simulate the sounds, I do so by imagining how I would make the sounds with my mouth.

Also your point about casting choices for movie adaptations resonates. When a movie is made of a book I've been reading I'm almost always just so pleased by finally being able to see what the character looks like, and have never felt disappointment.

If anything while reading about characters, my mind cycles over possible physical attributes wondering which a character might have, but never really building anything resembling imagery.

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

#112

Post by Arelius » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 2:25 AM UTC

JshWright wrote: post #65

pengaru wrote: post #42

Teaching people how to tie even simple knots is effective at distinguishing the visual from non-visual thinkers. It's one of the interesting aspects of going sailing.

I'm pretty convinced I experience aphantasia (never been clincially tested), I can't even fathom what it means to "visualize" something. I'm also very good at knot tying. It's a hobby I enjoy, and a practical skill in rope rescue activities I participate in. Knot typing seems much more "spatial" than "visual" to me. Interestingly, the article specifically mentions differences in spatial abilities as not being correla…

I resonate with this as well. Anything strongly spatial, such as tying knots, navigating really any sort of space, even after just a single visit, and things such as sports come very easy to me. But even visualizing an Apple in any capacity (as an arbitrary example) seems to escape me, And asking me to, for instance draw one, would rely on a list of facts that I know about apples: * Apples are red * Apples are generally spherical * Apples have a stem on one side, and a little flowery bit on the other. * There are indentations around those bits. * An Apple's shape is a bit heart-ish. * Bits of the apple are bumpy when as swept around it's primary axis (I.... think only on the bottom???)

Maybe that gives you a sense of my ability to visualize.

While in stark contrast, I can often take a few looks at an already tied knot, and reverse-engineer/decompose it's construction down to a series of steps that I can feel spatially I can then often, much later be able to reconstruct that knot based on the combination of the few bits I remember, and the general knowledge I have about space in general and knots in specific.

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

#113

Post by plutonorm » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 2:27 AM UTC

jjk166 wrote: post #79

plutonorm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can't draw what I see with my mind very well for the same reason I can't draw what I see with my eyes very well: my hands are terrible. I do enjoy drawing, but it sucks to be painfully aware of how different what I produce is from what I intended to produce. Where I am not limited by my dexterity, such as with computer aided design, I can perfectly recreate what I envision.

So you can't trace a picture using tracing paper?

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

#114

Post by yencabulator » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 2:33 AM UTC

smabie wrote: post #110

di4na wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can draw you a dog, but if you ask me to picture a ball on a table, i do not picture anything specific. It is just the abstract idea of a ball on the table. It does not have colour, substance, space, nothing.

What about dreams? Presumably you see images of stuff when dreaming?

My dreams are very spatial, contain movement, indistinct dialogue, and sometimes an "emphatic" sensation of feelings of the characters present.

There's pretty much no color, no exact shape, clothing detail etc. No surface has any pattern, really. But I know extremely clearly how 3 people in my dream were positioned relative to each other and the room.

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

#115

Post by nalllar » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 2:36 AM 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…

It's incredibly easy to "typical mind" and expect that the normal inner experience of being human is the same for everyone else as it is for you.

There's a wide variance in visual imagery. I know people who can vividly imagine things with their eyes open, find it easy, almost automatic, others who have to try, and some who can't at all.

Similarly there are wide variances in how people think: some think very visually, some have an internal monologue (or multiple), some have an inner experience with neither.

I used to be nearly aphantasic - having only brief flashes of vision except on the edge of sleep - but have been slowly training the skill after finding out it's possible, and normal, to do more.

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

#116

Post by ip26 » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 3:26 AM UTC

cercatrova wrote: post #107

m3kw9 wrote: post #89

I’m not getting how someone can close their eyes and a high res picture shows up like the image on your desktop background? Is that even possible?

Yes, that is what the experience of most people is like without aphantasia. I can even, for like a second, see a fully formed picture in my mind, like a scene from a sci-fi movie, or anything else, really, although it can disappear if I don't focus on the exact details. I can see everything, the shapes, the layout, colors, all of it. It really is like playing a movie in your mind.

Picture a soccer ball in your mind.

Can you now count the black hexagons in view, or do you have to decide how many there are first?

(Ok, now did you notice that they aren't actually hexagons, they are pentagons?)

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

#117

Post by ip26 » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 3:29 AM UTC

JshWright wrote: post #58

3f34f34f wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

I've read plenty of folks who claim they can watch a movie on the inside of their eyelids, an experience they claim is indistinguishable from watching it on a TV.

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

#118

Post by jimmaswell » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 3:54 AM UTC

abathur wrote: post #82

arkades wrote: post #17

Without even digging into the paper, let's be clear. They didn't find "they have memory trouble." They found, "they have trouble recalling sensations." > "Our data also showed that individuals with aphantasia not only report being unable to visualise, but also report comparatively reduced imagery, on average, in all other sensory modalities, including auditory, tactile, kinesthetic, taste, olfactory and emotion," the…

I think there's some accidental synecdoche here. At least for those of us endowed with the gift/curse of forming memories as life rushes by, they can appear to be composed of details our senses perceived around us enmeshed with details about how our wetware experienced that moment. Sometimes, we even have false memories of things that didn't happen, or that happened differently than we remember. There's a separate wo…

I've found memory palaces need at least some upkeep. I only ever used it once to memorize some silly list of matrix properties for extra credit on a test and it worked really well, going along a chain of symbolic objects placed along a location I know very well (the first homeworld of Spyro 3), but it faded over time and now I only remember one thing from it.

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

#119

Post by smabie » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 3:58 AM UTC

yencabulator wrote: post #114

smabie wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about dreams? Presumably you see images of stuff when dreaming?

My dreams are very spatial, contain movement, indistinct dialogue, and sometimes an "emphatic" sensation of feelings of the characters present. There's pretty much no color, no exact shape, clothing detail etc. No surface has any pattern, really. But I know extremely clearly how 3 people in my dream were positioned relative to each other and the room.

How about doing math in your head? If I couldn't visualize the actual numbers I don't think I could do it at all.

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

#120

Post by _ink_ » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 4:19 AM UTC

I only learnt about aphantasia very recently. I seem to be affected. It was very surprising to me, that people can "see" things only by thinking about them. It explains a lot. For example I never understood what's so great about reading books. But I can imaging that this is great if you actually see the things you read about.

I can also confirm the findings of this study. I rarly dream. I cannot hear music in my head. I also learnt quite a while ago, that my peers can remember the past in way that is mind boggling for me.

It's pretty depressing to be honest.

Do we already know if this is something which is inherited?