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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

#51

Post by racingmars »

lelanthran wrote: post #35
joedevon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been scared to take the VVIQ test because I guess, in the back of my mind, I feared, or kinda knew...that I have aphantasia. Even spoke about aphantasia at an accessibility talk a couple days ago. I finally pushed myself and took the test tonight. Of the 5 choices: 1. No image at all, I only “know” I am thinking of the object 2. Dim and vague image 3. Moderately realistic and vivid 4. Realistic and reasonably vi…

> I finally pushed myself and took the test tonight. What test is this? An online one? > Or that reading a book means literally seeing the action. WTH? I still don't get it. That can't be real. I assure you it is real, and why I prefer reading fiction to watching the same story as a movie. I find that with scifi especially , the book tends to be much more visually satisfying than the movie.

> What test is this? An online one?

https://aphantasia.com/vviq/

Personally, I don't find the test particularly enlightening... it's a test to assess how vivid your mental visualizations are, but it does so by just asking how vivid your mental visualizations are. I can't tell how it's any different from an IQ test that just asks you "what do you think your IQ is?"

But I also believe I have aphantasia, so it's blindingly (hah...pun not intended) obvious to me that I don't visualize anything mentally. Any result of the test was a forgone conclusion for me. Maybe if you do visualize things to some degree it's helpful to tease out various aspects of the vividness of your visualizations. I don't know, it's not something I can relate to.

Re: Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details

#52

Post by racingmars »

thegabriele wrote: post #50
racingmars wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am very skeptical about the concept of aphantasia. > Also, it is near impossible to report objectively about your inner processes in a useful way. I agree that discussing our mental/inner processes is difficult due to a lack of a common frame of reference on which to base descriptions. (I'm reminded of McCoy and Spock's conversation in Star Trek IV... "Are you telling me I'd have to die to discuss your experience…

What if i ask you to visualize the road from your residence to the first stop you usually make? Kinda like using google street, but in your mind...Do you visualize nothing of the streets, the buildings, the crossroads, trees and the like? Do you orient yourself just by "instructions"? Thanks

Just by instructions is probably how I'd describe it, yes. No visualization of the streets, other houses, etc.

Since you asked specifically about my residence to the first stop, which is obviously the portion of driving I perform more than anything else, I would say there's something almost... "Pavlovian" about it, in that the route and actions to get from my house to the first intersection are "burned in" to my brain, but not at all in a way I'd describe as being able to "visualize" it versus "describe it verbally," which is what I have to do in my mind if asked about it.

Whether it's significant or not (related to aphantasia), I have a horrible sense of direction, get lost while driving incredibly easily, and am entirely reliant on step-by-step directions to get somewhere (now that GPS in the car is a thing it's not too terrifying to try to drive somewhere I've never driven before, but I've been driving since before GPS was a thing available in cars and getting to new places was not fun back then!)

Re: Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details

#53

Post by extr »

I don't quite understand the nature of the study. I recognize the concept of "noncommitment", it's definitely how my visualization (and more generally, my "confabulatory" capability) operates. But as soon as you start asking me questions about it, you're biasing me toward making sure I come up with extra physical details that I think might be salient based on past questions. I don't normally visualize a scene in extreme detail because it's not necessary. So what is the study testing exactly? How much detail they created without any clue/context into what kinds of questions they would later be asked? Or the actual limit/extent of people's visualization capabilities?

Re: Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details

#54

Post by LoganDark »

it's incredibly obvious to me that my mind's eye does not actually create a real picture, but rather reproduces the derived meaning that would result from seeing a real picture. therefore i can reason about it just like i can reason about a sentence that is being spoken out loud by someone else, but the details are indeed not all there. they are made up depending on what i decide to 'render' by focusing on it

Re: Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details

#55

Post by LoganDark »

interroboink wrote: post #4

This 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

> It always amazes me how people's minds can be so fundamentally different.

we encountered this when we learned about the difference between autistic and non-autistic minds. one of the reasons why autistics behave the way they do is because the connection structure in their brain is different enough that they literally, actually, do not experience "thought" in the same way that neurotypical people do. the same is true in reverse - for autistics, neurotypical people experience thought in such a fundamentally different manner that it's basically impossible for one to imagine what metacognition might feel like from within a non-autistic brain. it's just not something you can really fathom at all

source: we are the autistic, hehe

Re: Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details

#56

Post by bryanrasmussen »

JacobSeated wrote: post #49

Interesting. I find I visualize concepts more than often irrelevant details, so when asked to visualize a person knocking off a ball from a table, I might emphasize the visual details of the ball rather than the person. E.g. White with black pentagons. This is simply because the person's characteristics are not described, and a person is more complex to visualize than a simple shape like a ball. After all, why waste…

>This is simply because the person's characteristics are not described, and a person is more complex to visualize than a simple shape like a ball.

does this mean that when asked to visualize something you exert conscious effort to do the visualization, choosing to not focus on the visualization of the complex person and focusing on the simple ball.

Re: Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details

#57

Post by jumploops »

smokel wrote: post #39
jumploops wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Don't believe everything people say. It is very hard for people to report their inner processes correctly.

I completely agree — all of our minds work slightly differently and thus using language to describe one’s internal loop is necessarily fraught with translation error.

With that said, this report came from a close relative who had no idea that aphantasia was a thing. We started with the experiment: “imagine a barn, what color is it and how many windows does it have?” and then proceeded to dive into the limits of their capabilities (e.g. detail is often absent or brushed over, while some things are quite vivid like people’s faces).

Her report was quite different from others I’ve spoken with, so it certainly seems like there’s a spectrum to the experience of phantasia.

Re: Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details

#58

Post by wheybags »

interstice wrote: post #15

I 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.

This is exactly me, and I've never heard anyone else describe it before.

Re: Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details

#59

Post by lyu07282 »

anonzzzies wrote: post #31

It is my technique for falling asleep quickly; imagining a scene, whatever I feel like, and zooming in every detail to make sure it’s there and correct. Keep focusing on the scene and soon it was just a dream.

Similar here, it feels like sort of lossy vector graphics of a fractal, brains are weird
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