I did my own experiment on starting to read the article, and, as the author describes, I got the ball color, but not the persons hair color. On thinking about my experience, I likened my mental image to my normal visual image with a fixed gaze (no eye motion), where the vast majority of color and detail is in the foveal field of view (a few degrees). Outside that region, detail and color drop off rapidly. The ball is what I'm looking at, and the person (and their hair color) is outside the foveal region and vague/less detailed.
Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details
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Re: Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details
#12This brings to mind the whole Aphantasia¹ concept (briefly mentioned in TFA), where some people don't see images in their mind. It always amazes me how people's minds can be so fundamentally different. Sometimes I try to imagine what it would be like to be born blind, but being sighted and still not being able to create mental imagery seems almost stranger. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia
I have aphantasia and didn’t realize it until adulthood. Both my brother and I have it (or lack it), though neither of our parents have aphantasia. When people spoke of “daydreaming” I always assumed it was just a metaphor for being deep in thought, as it would be clearly impossible for people to visualize things without dreaming or hallucinating… boy was I wrong! Apparently some folk can even look at a wall and imag…
I am fairly sure I don’t have aphantasia, but for me there’s no visual component to daydreaming - it’s purely just zoning out and later realizing I’d lost track of time. It’s so interesting to hear about how other people’s minds work totally differently from that.
Re: Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details
#13[deleted]
Re: Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details
#14This brings to mind the whole Aphantasia¹ concept (briefly mentioned in TFA), where some people don't see images in their mind. It always amazes me how people's minds can be so fundamentally different. Sometimes I try to imagine what it would be like to be born blind, but being sighted and still not being able to create mental imagery seems almost stranger. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia
The idea that people’s minds can be so different is something I didn’t realize until a couple of years ago and has been a lightening bolt moment for me in better understanding myself and others! I believe I have aphantasia, and the idea of being able to visualize things on demand seem so strange to me that it’s hard for me to even imagine (isn’t it distracting?). When I heard things like “count sheep to fall asleep”…
> but the moment I try and focus it disappears in a snap
I can conjure up images in my mind, but they’re usually not vivid and can be quite fragile. I’m not sure how normal this is.
Re: Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details
#15I struggle to imagine a fixed image or object on demand, but when falling asleep or in certain situations its like something gets unplugged and then everything becomes way more vivid and detailed to the point of becoming a flood.
I've often wondered if artists can naturally get into that state much more easily.
Re: Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details
#16Interesting although not too surprising when I think about it: as they point out, in the moment perception is sort of lacking in detail too. There's a certain amount of attentional or working memory capacity, so you're not really capturing all of reality even in the moment, it's probably more like you're focusing and defocusing and refocusing on different details depending on demand, in a sort of real-time series of adjustments.
For example, if someone asks you "what color is the ball?" even if it is in a room in front of you you might not necessarily process it unless asked, in which case you visually search to find out.
In this sense, imagined worlds could be really vivid, because even the most vivid reality is only incompletely processed in the moment (reality will always be more vivid for lots of reasons nonetheless).
This also made me wonder about dreams, in that many similar issues related to details and certain kinds of processes seem to surface there. It's pretty common, for example, for my dreams to kind of "short circuit" and for me to wake up when someone in my dream asks me a question like "what color was that ball?" It becomes evident that that detail wasn't there, and I'm sort of filling it in after the fact.
Re: Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details
#17I struggle to imagine a fixed image or object on demand, but when falling asleep or in certain situations its like something gets unplugged and then everything becomes way more vivid and detailed to the point of becoming a flood. I've often wondered if artists can naturally get into that state much more easily.
Similar here. It's like I suddenly have access to an instant MidJourney that I can prompt with any suggestion. Sometimes a late night whisky before bed seems to help the process. Find myself wondering "is this what visually creative people get to do all the time?".
Re: Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details
#18I struggle to imagine a fixed image or object on demand, but when falling asleep or in certain situations its like something gets unplugged and then everything becomes way more vivid and detailed to the point of becoming a flood. I've often wondered if artists can naturally get into that state much more easily.
Reminds me of the anecdote about Dali staying awake in a chair with a spoon in his hand, then trying to sketch the hypnagogic imagery that came to him in the brief moment between when he fell asleep and when the spoon hit the floor and woke him up.
https://www.livescience.com/little-known-sleep-stage-may-be-...
Re: Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details
#19I struggle to imagine a fixed image or object on demand, but when falling asleep or in certain situations its like something gets unplugged and then everything becomes way more vivid and detailed to the point of becoming a flood. I've often wondered if artists can naturally get into that state much more easily.
Amateur artist here. I rely on imagining images with lots of detail. Then drawing/painting it out is almost a matter of tracing the mental projection onto the canvas. Often the image in my mind is more clear to me than whatever is physically in front of me. It is a lot like intentional dreaming.
Re: Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details
#20I struggle to imagine a fixed image or object on demand, but when falling asleep or in certain situations its like something gets unplugged and then everything becomes way more vivid and detailed to the point of becoming a flood. I've often wondered if artists can naturally get into that state much more easily.
Sounds like hypnogogic hallucinations and/or the hypnogogic stare. Thomas Edison and Salvador Dali (an)used this state for creativity supposedly.