Some people can't see mental images
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Re: Some people can't see mental images
#2https://archive.ph/iMdvd
I have aphantasia and it always astounds me when I see an article like this, or hear a friend talking about it (about not having it) and realize that their experience of the world is so fundamentally different than my own.
Re: Some people can't see mental images
#3Is this related to internal monologue? I don't see mentioned in my view.
Re: Some people can't see mental images
#4Is this related to internal monologue? I don't see mentioned in my view.
I've seen some sections discussing memory, but not necessarily internal monologue.
Re: Some people can't see mental images
#5Is this related to internal monologue? I don't see mentioned in my view.
I don't think so.
Anecdotally I know someone with aphantasia and they report having an internal monologue.
Re: Some people can't see mental images
#6That's me! I can visualize processes really well, and complex systems. But ask me to picture or hear something in my head and I'll just stare at you.
Re: Some people can't see mental images
#7I’ve read tons of these and still have no idea if I have aphantasia or not. I can’t understand whether people just have different ways of describing what’s in their minds eye or if there’s really a fundamental difference.
Re: Some people can't see mental images
#8Re: Some people can't see mental images
#9I wouldn’t doubt that maybe there’s also some condition where people can’t see physical images at all. Like they know where stuff is because signals go to their brain but if you ask them to describe what they are seeing they can’t, they see nothing. It’s really not much more bizarre than aphantasia.
Re: Some people can't see mental images
#10> He knew, of course, that people talked about “picturing” or “visualizing,” but he had always taken this to be just a metaphorical way of saying “thinking.” Now it appeared that, in some incomprehensible sense, people meant these words literally.
This is the quintessential aphantasic experience. I still struggle to believe that other people "see" things in their heads.