People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study • Hacker News Board

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#101

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 10:50 PM UTC

georgewsinger wrote: post #97

Question: Beyond aphantasiacs, could there be living humans who lack qualia altogether? The Hard Problem of Consciousness™ is "how can a physical system generate qualia?", where "qualia" is something like "the internal and subjective component of sense perceptions", or "what it feels like to have experiences". I once ran into a very intelligent person (philosophically trained) who genuinely didn't understand the Hard…

People who genuinely lack qualia would be completely immune to physical sensations, so this is unlikely.

I can imagine a hypothetical brain in a glass jar might survive like this, but for most people the absence of physical sensations while living in a body would be evidence of a very serious medical condition.

Of course being able to persuade yourself through sleight of philosophy that physical sensations are somehow illusory is a different class of problem.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#102

Post by mennis16 » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 11:39 PM UTC

falsaberN1 wrote: post #32

raxxorrax wrote: post #5

How would you test such a condition? When I paint (bloody amateur) I certainly can imagine a generic tree or house or something specific like my house or my garden tree. The latter takes more form of an image, but it is still quite abstract. It is not really a picture, it is a memory and quite fleeting. But if I would see a real picture, I would go to the doc. What do you mean they cannot conjure an image. If you ask…

I honestly don't know if it can be tested unless it's determined to happen in some area of the brain, that can be monitored externally for increased activity. When I paint myself I usually compose a scene in my mind. When drawing characters, I mostly follow whatever my mental image is, then as I trace the lines I can visualize how they connect. When drawing characters that aren't mine I make a point of not using a re…

There are some studies that suggest there are brain activity differences, at least when asked to imagine something the self reported vividness of that imagery was correlated with greater activity in visual cortex while imagining.

There also was a recent paper suggesting that increased baseline visual cortex excitability can lead to decreased imagery ability (perhaps due to a "saturation" type effect).

But there is not a ton of research out there on these topics yet, so it's all very preliminary.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#103

Post by buss » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 11:43 PM UTC

arkades wrote: post #17

Without even digging into the paper, let's be clear. They didn't find "they have memory trouble." They found, "they have trouble recalling sensations." > "Our data also showed that individuals with aphantasia not only report being unable to visualise, but also report comparatively reduced imagery, on average, in all other sensory modalities, including auditory, tactile, kinesthetic, taste, olfactory and emotion," the…

Incorrect. If you did actually dig in to the paper they found:

Aphantasic participants scored significantly lower than control group 2 on all outcomes of the imagery and episodic memory questionnaires (all p 0.52, all BF10 > 1.42e8) with the exception of the factual memory component of the SAM.

So aphantasics (like myself) do have poor episodic memory.

Paper here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65705-7

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#104

Post by thomas536 » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 11:54 PM UTC

jabofh wrote: post #85

arkades wrote: post #17

Without even digging into the paper, let's be clear. They didn't find "they have memory trouble." They found, "they have trouble recalling sensations." > "Our data also showed that individuals with aphantasia not only report being unable to visualise, but also report comparatively reduced imagery, on average, in all other sensory modalities, including auditory, tactile, kinesthetic, taste, olfactory and emotion," the…

Much what I was about to comment. My mother passed away some 35-odd years away, and it really took me by surprise when I found out my little sister could visualise her and describe her from memory. I, on the other hand, could m and can recognise photos of her, but when describing her soul resort to learned facts: she was very pretty, slim, had brown hair and eyes, etc., etc. Where the story turns, though, is how I re…

I can do this as well (recall where a stray phone is), but don't understand why I notice and remember better than others. Do I remember more "that's out of place" instances, am I more predisposed to prefer things be in a certain place? Not sure.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#105

Post by jnwatson » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 11:55 PM UTC

bnt wrote: post #84

arkades wrote: post #17

Without even digging into the paper, let's be clear. They didn't find "they have memory trouble." They found, "they have trouble recalling sensations." > "Our data also showed that individuals with aphantasia not only report being unable to visualise, but also report comparatively reduced imagery, on average, in all other sensory modalities, including auditory, tactile, kinesthetic, taste, olfactory and emotion," the…

Interesting, I on the other hand remember things “geographically”. It’s like I have precise GPS locations in my head attached to memories. In order to recall something, I usually try to remember where the memory “happened”, once I figure out the associated location - there comes the vivid memory as well.

This sounds like the method of loci [1].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#106

Post by pseudalopex » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 12:45 AM UTC

raxxorrax wrote: post #5

How would you test such a condition? When I paint (bloody amateur) I certainly can imagine a generic tree or house or something specific like my house or my garden tree. The latter takes more form of an image, but it is still quite abstract. It is not really a picture, it is a memory and quite fleeting. But if I would see a real picture, I would go to the doc. What do you mean they cannot conjure an image. If you ask…

VVIQ[1] is a common test.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vividness_of_Visual_Imagery_Qu...

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#107

Post by cercatrova » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:44 AM UTC

m3kw9 wrote: post #89

I’m not getting how someone can close their eyes and a high res picture shows up like the image on your desktop background? Is that even possible?

Yes, that is what the experience of most people is like without aphantasia. I can even, for like a second, see a fully formed picture in my mind, like a scene from a sci-fi movie, or anything else, really, although it can disappear if I don't focus on the exact details. I can see everything, the shapes, the layout, colors, all of it. It really is like playing a movie in your mind.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#108

Post by cercatrova » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:46 AM UTC

3f34f34f wrote: post #12

missingrib wrote: post #3

I'm worried I have this but I'm not completely sure I do. My dreams are not very vivid at all and usually I just "know" that things are happening in them instead of vividly seeing what's going on. However I can hear music very clearly in my head. If asked to visualize, say, an apple in my head I really don't see it very vividly at all. It's depressing if I'm being honest.

No one on earth can 'visualise' an image in their head as if they were seeing it in real life. This entire fiasco is just people on different spectrums of mental picturing that are freaking out because they are misinterpreting what aphantasia is. I assure you you are most likely normal, and it's common to not recite a sentence word for word or picture an object perfectly. Others can do it very well. Just like you can…

Yes, that is what the experience of most people is like without aphantasia. I can even, for like a second, see a fully formed picture in my mind, like a scene from a sci-fi movie, or anything else, really, although it can disappear if I don't focus on the exact details. I can see everything, the shapes, the layout, colors, all of it. It really is like playing a movie in your mind.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#109

Post by cercatrova » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:49 AM UTC

throw1234651234 wrote: post #67

madaxe_again wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As complete as it needs to be. I can see and hear my imaginings quite clearly, and often use mechanical analogues to test non-directly visualisable abstract ideas and logical flows. In more general terms, I can see and explore real and imagined environments, and listen to music with perfect fidelity - although doing the hearing bit only works well with considerable focus, and peace and quiet - visual I find easy enou…

I have a very hard time believing claims like this. Not to single you out, but you should be able to draw perfectly then and imagine whole systems in your mind. The latter is especially unlikely given that most people are limited to 5-7 "items" in their working memory. To design even a simple system, e.g. a brake caliper, that's way more than 7 items, and they aren't "atomic" items either. Again, this isn't a stab at…

I can hold whole systems in my mind, but I can't draw, as I've never learned. That doesn't mean that what I see in my mind is not real or inaccurate.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#110

Post by smabie » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:50 AM UTC

di4na wrote: post #18

raxxorrax wrote: post #5

How would you test such a condition? When I paint (bloody amateur) I certainly can imagine a generic tree or house or something specific like my house or my garden tree. The latter takes more form of an image, but it is still quite abstract. It is not really a picture, it is a memory and quite fleeting. But if I would see a real picture, I would go to the doc. What do you mean they cannot conjure an image. If you ask…

I can draw you a dog, but if you ask me to picture a ball on a table, i do not picture anything specific. It is just the abstract idea of a ball on the table. It does not have colour, substance, space, nothing.

What about dreams? Presumably you see images of stuff when dreaming?