I strongly suspect this effect is correlated with a weakness in short-term or working memory. Independent of general intelligence is the necessity for those with a weak short-term or working memory to compensate by relying on long-term, in depth understanding in order to JIT the necessary short-term structures into being on the spot, (often repeatedly as these images decay rapidly) in order to solve a problem. Wherea…
Agree with this; also, it feels like you are reading out the same theories I have somewhere in my brain and that's a weird sensation. A related theory: being good at math, especially mental math, correlates with aphantasia (not being able to see pictures in your head). People who can see images in their head learn to do arithmetic early on with visual algorithms, which are fundamentally not good for understanding as…
This is the kind of condition I wonder if I have. Because on one hand, if I do a visualization exercise I would describe it as foggy at best. Then again, I struggle to understand how our brains could be wired that differently from person to person, that we could have or lack certain mental senses. I would suggest that everyone has some latent capability, whether they recognize it or not. After all the visual cortex is quite important.
In the context of your example, those good at mental math might see a chalkboard like image of the problem with all the detail. Those who struggle might be distracted visualizing the items that are being counted themselves, and all their detail.
For another riddle, consider the question of whether one recognizes their thoughts as an internal monologue or not, and how that relates to communication and action.