Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 9:39 AM UTC

sfsdw345345 wrote: post #42

parasti wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In musical terms this is called audiation - the ability to imagine sound. From my experience, this can be acquired indirectly over time through regular vocal and musical practice (e.g., singing in a local choir or practicing an instrument). You can write music with or without it, or using both: sometimes you have a specific sound in your head that you want to materialize, other times you're experimenting with your in…

> the ability to imagine sound This is a real, normal thing?? I can hear snippets of music, usually orchestral or opera, as vividly as if they were actually playing, but all I'm listening to is the white noise of a fan, and I'm just remembering them from before. When I was young, it was often a radio announcer because we listened to the radio in the car a lot. I always thought this was very bizarre and was not suppos…

[deleted]

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

#62

Post by lll-o-lll » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 9:42 AM UTC

smokel wrote: post #40

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

I am very skeptical about the concept of aphantasia. For one, I think that visual phantasy can be trained, or at least developed. Also, it is near impossible to report objectively about your inner processes in a useful way. As an example, many people believed for some time that dreams were in black and white, which is obviously not true for everyone. However, this does not imply that dreams are in color. It seems mor…

> It may well be that some people actually have some form of aphantasia, but all the self reporting of amazing visual powers or the lack thereof seems more indicative of peoples' egos than the actual differences in what they are capable of.

I have it, and I struggle to understand your skepticism. What’s the ego here? I’m proud of not being able to do something?

My assumption is that the visual processing layer is still used, I just don’t get to experience that part, so I’m interacting at the lower layer. Kind of the like the “code” in the matrix. You see the woman in the red dress, I see the code. We can still work with the substrate effectively, just in different ways.

One thing that does suck is that it seems to be associated with lack of episodic memory. I lack all episodic memory, other than facts about things that have happened. I also don’t have the ability to imagine myself in the future (this is different to not having an imagination, I imagine plenty, just not visually). It makes me a little sad sometimes to think that when I’m old, I won’t have memories like others do, and I do think the lack of episodic style imagination has made it harder to make intentional changes to my life for the better.

On the other hand, I think it’s been a great benefit for abstract reasoning. As all my reasoning is necessarily non-visual, problems that don’t naturally have a visual representation are no harder for me. I think it’s useful as a programmer, although I have learned how to draw representations as it’s of benefit for communication. Swings and roundabouts!

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

#63

Post by heinrich5991 » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 10:09 AM UTC

lelanthran wrote: post #36

gabereiser wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of those videos where a comic book artist draws a character in 1 minute, 10 minutes, and 100 minutes (sped up of course). Cool stuff but also hilarious at the 1 min sketches.

> Reminds me of those videos where a comic book artist draws a character in 1 minute, 10 minutes, and 100 minutes (sped up of course). Cool stuff but also hilarious at the 1 min sketches. I'd love to see one of those. Google is returning useless results for a video search on "video of sketches done by an artist with different time constraints."

"a character in 1 minute, 10 minutes, and 100 minutes" (without quotes) gives acceptable Google results for me.

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

#64

Post by b0tch7 » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 11:25 AM UTC

mathewsanders wrote: post #7

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

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”…

Very interesting, you've described me perfectly. Especially the amount of audible conversations. I actually talk outloud to myself quite a bit too when I'm trying to think through something.

A funny habit of mine is sometimes I'll go for a walk with my ear buds in (not playing anything) to give myself an 'excuse' to be having a conversation with myself

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

#65

Post by Qem » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 11:56 AM UTC

ckw wrote: post #41

qbasic_forever wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the opposite, in my mind it's almost like a CAD program mixed with Photoshop and I have complete control over building and visualizing anything. I can imagine building a lego set piece by piece and how each component looks, feels, slots together with others, etc. I can rotate it all around and imagine sides that aren't visible. I can change the colors and the textures and imagine any kind of lighting. As a kid I…

Can you visualize a blackboard and perform calculations ‘by hand’?

I read somewhere some very proficient abacists are able to just picture the instrument in their heads and then proceed to do impressive mental arithmetic by just operating the imagined abacus.

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

#66

Post by igleria » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 12:42 PM UTC

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.

I usually take post-lunch naps frequently and between falling sleep and been awake my mind achieves a state of brute-forced creativity and thinking. Dunno how to call it.

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

#67

Post by theobromananda » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 1:41 PM UTC

sfsdw345345 wrote: post #42

parasti wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In musical terms this is called audiation - the ability to imagine sound. From my experience, this can be acquired indirectly over time through regular vocal and musical practice (e.g., singing in a local choir or practicing an instrument). You can write music with or without it, or using both: sometimes you have a specific sound in your head that you want to materialize, other times you're experimenting with your in…

> the ability to imagine sound This is a real, normal thing?? I can hear snippets of music, usually orchestral or opera, as vividly as if they were actually playing, but all I'm listening to is the white noise of a fan, and I'm just remembering them from before. When I was young, it was often a radio announcer because we listened to the radio in the car a lot. I always thought this was very bizarre and was not suppos…

Do you actually hear the music in the fan noise or do you hear/imagine it in your mind? The first one is to consider carefully as it happens on LSD and in psychosis - maybe also strong synaesthesia or HPPD - , the second one is normal.

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

#68

Post by spiralx » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 1:46 PM UTC

fwlr wrote: post #28

Research and discussion of mental imagery has always confused me. It seems like there is a perennial surprise at conditions like aphantasia, or of discoveries that some people have high fidelity mental imagery while others have low fidelity mental imagery. But one of the very first major published papers on mental imagery, arguably the paper that opened this topic up to scientific inquiry, was a statistical study of…

I only realised that I barely had any ability to visualise in the last few years and I'm over 40, it's something that's never been there and because it's not the same as lacking either visual memory or imagination there's not really much in the way of cues to make it obvious - the last time I was asked to "picture this in your head" was probably at school three decades ago...

Given I can replay music in my head on demand (called audiation according to a comment below!) with reasonable fidelity even for songs I don't have strong memories of, it seems likely my aphantasia is the developmental deficit of the connection between visual memory and my executive function due to ADHD in both stability and throughput.

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

#69

Post by spiralx » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 1:54 PM UTC

sfsdw345345 wrote: post #42

parasti wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In musical terms this is called audiation - the ability to imagine sound. From my experience, this can be acquired indirectly over time through regular vocal and musical practice (e.g., singing in a local choir or practicing an instrument). You can write music with or without it, or using both: sometimes you have a specific sound in your head that you want to materialize, other times you're experimenting with your in…

> the ability to imagine sound This is a real, normal thing?? I can hear snippets of music, usually orchestral or opera, as vividly as if they were actually playing, but all I'm listening to is the white noise of a fan, and I'm just remembering them from before. When I was young, it was often a radio announcer because we listened to the radio in the car a lot. I always thought this was very bizarre and was not suppos…

Sounds like audial daydreaming, where white noise would be perfect for triggering almost any memory of music depending on the fluctuations of frequencies. Staring at the static on an old TV does the same thing visually if you look at it and relax your focus.

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

#70

Post by theobromananda » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 1:59 PM UTC

lll-o-lll wrote: post #62

smokel wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very skeptical about the concept of aphantasia. For one, I think that visual phantasy can be trained, or at least developed. Also, it is near impossible to report objectively about your inner processes in a useful way. As an example, many people believed for some time that dreams were in black and white, which is obviously not true for everyone. However, this does not imply that dreams are in color. It seems mor…

> It may well be that some people actually have some form of aphantasia, but all the self reporting of amazing visual powers or the lack thereof seems more indicative of peoples' egos than the actual differences in what they are capable of. I have it, and I struggle to understand your skepticism. What’s the ego here? I’m proud of not being able to do something? My assumption is that the visual processing layer is sti…

I do not get the ego angle, but I am also skeptic of aphantasia. My own experience could be described by either 1 ("no image") or 5 ("perfectly vivid") in any questionaire concerning it - when I imagine anything, there is no image at all, yet I know I "see" something. E.g. I can think of a barn, and there is the mental impression of the shape, the color and so on, yet nothing at all is seen. I believe most of the difference is, as always, semantics: What does "seeing" an image mean internally? Some people who believe that they have aphantasia believe that there should be an image in front of their eyes when they close it - that is nonsense. It does not help that others who can imagine describe imagination in the same terms.

When I think of an abstract idea, the sense of imagination is exactly the same as if I was imagining a picture: there is an impression, but it is not one of the sense but one of mind.

The difference can be clearly seen with the use of psychedelics that do create real inner seeing: tryptamines like LSD only strengthen the internal knowing of mental imaginery (plus of course visual artifacts, warping etc. in the actual visual field), yet the combination of LSD and ketamine creates the famous "free-wheeling hallucinations" in which you enter a perfectly lucid photorealistic 3D dream which you can shape in any way you desire. Tropane alkaloids create real hallucinations which you experience instead of reality, but I have no experience with this. Classical psychedelics do not create hallucinations but only mental imaginery and visual morphing.