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People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

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Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#101

Post by flippingheck »

I'm pretty sure I have this, for all senses, and I only just learned there's things other than iñner eye (which I only learned of a few months).

If people have an "inner taste" or "inner hearing", why bother eating a sweet or playing music?

> Asked what sits beside the television, they answer without hesitation, but “we experience these as an awareness of a set of spatial facts.”

This helps me understand what little I do seem to have.

Maybe the most vivid thing that I can imagine is the world map, but... I wouldn't call it visual. But I can recall that Europe is east of US, and Italy looks like a boot.

Perhaps it is just spatial facts.

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#102

Post by cheez-whiz »

dd8601fn wrote: post #66
izzydata wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of people that can "see" in their mind are over-estimating their ability and a lot of people who can't are under-estimated their ability. It's probably a spectrum like a lot of things are, except in this case it is exceptionally hard to to know where you fall on it. The gap may not be as wide as it sounds. Almost everyone is still a functioning thinking human afterall. If the gap were so wide it seems l…

I certainly have to try. And the results often ain’t great. I have wondered if painters and interior decorators and such were typically blessed with much better tooling for that. I don‘t know how closely visual recall and creative visualization are related, though.

I imagine it's tougher to do. My friend who has become a well known tattoo artist has exceptional visual recall of minute details. I have to believe it contributed to his ability(tho he grinded hard, used to borrow anatomy textbooks to learn from)

Not to say someone with poor visual recall can't make great art, it just may be tougher to make something closely representative from memory.

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#103

Post by chiefgeek »

_ink_ wrote: post #52
chiefgeek wrote: post #17

I’ve worked as a professional photographer for twenty years and I visualize absolutely zero with my eyes closed. It’s only recently that I learned of aphantasia. Even on most psychedelic journeys I don’t have closed eye visuals, NN-DMT being the consistent exception. Everything is more of just a “knowingness”.

Have you worked mostly as documentary photographer, or did you also do stages setups, like portraying people? I am only a photo enthusiast without any mental images and I struggle with portraits. Since I know about aphantasia I am wondering whether it has something to do with the absence of mental images.

Honestly, I’ve done it all. I’ve shot thousands of headshots and portraits and hundreds of events. I’ve not typically been a “conceptual” photographer such as somebody like Art Kane. I started on film and moved to digital in 2003 before I was shooting professionally. I get more of an “idea” in my head, however I don’t “see” a final result. Digital has helped immeasurably to refine my work more quickly. Just as I “know” what a red fire hydrant looks like but I do not “see” an image.

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#104

Post by chiefgeek »

pohl wrote: post #48
chiefgeek wrote: post #17

I’ve worked as a professional photographer for twenty years and I visualize absolutely zero with my eyes closed. It’s only recently that I learned of aphantasia. Even on most psychedelic journeys I don’t have closed eye visuals, NN-DMT being the consistent exception. Everything is more of just a “knowingness”.

What’s it like to dream while you’re sleeping? Do you ever “see” anything then?

I do see images when I dream. It can get pretty immersive. Brains are wild.

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#105

Post by misthop »

jibbit wrote: post #98
misthop wrote: post #3

Aphantasiac here, happy to discuss or answer any questions

So you self-diagnosed yourself as unable to do something, based on what you imagine being able to do is like?

https://aphantasia.com/study/vviq

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#106

Post by fwlr »

suddenlybananas wrote: post #72
fwlr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aphantasiacs seem to be able to describe visual qualia as adequately as anyone else when the visual stimuli are currently present. But we do see descriptions differ between aphantasia and baseline in two cases: when the visual stimuli is recalled from memory, and when the visual stimuli is imagined. If it was about the difficulty of describing qualia, I don’t think we would see a difference between “visual stimuli pr…

I'm not denying there's a difference between the two groups, I'm denying that the difference is in phenomenal experience. If one group has a different way of describing their experience to others in general (e.g. perhaps because they interpret things much more literally than others), then they would likely describe specific things differently.

A quick demonstration I sometimes use to tease out this distinction: “imagine a six-sided die. Are you imagining it? Good. How many dots are on the side closest to you?”

If the phenomenal experience was the same and the difference is in the description, everyone should still be able to give a number as their answer, even if they have to use different processes to derive the number from their different descriptions. But aphantasiacs will visibly struggle to answer this question, or give a non-number non-answer like “no side is closest to me” or “depends on which way the die is facing”.

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#107

Post by godshatter »

smusamashah wrote: post #35
misthop wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's 5 ft tall, sharp features, curly white hair. i can remember imagery facts, but have not visual memory

But if you only remember facts, can someone else pretend to be that person you remember with those facts?

I'm also an aphant. Recognition still happens. I'll see a person I haven't seen in years, know that I know them, then finally remember who they are much later. Even though I can't picture them after seeing them, I'll still remember who they are much later. Usually, anyway.

I get stressed out having to meet someone I haven't seen for a long time in a cafe or something. I have to scan everyone and wait for that ping of recognition to happen.

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#108

Post by jibbit »

misthop wrote: post #105
jibbit wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you self-diagnosed yourself as unable to do something, based on what you imagine being able to do is like?

https://aphantasia.com/study/vviq

seems ironic (and not at all trustworthy)! if you're right, you can't actually imagine what being able to do it would be like

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#109

Post by logicallee »

misthop wrote: post #19
JoshTriplett wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it apply to audio as well? If you think of a song you know well, do you feel like you "hear" the music in your head, as though playing back an audio file? If you think of a movie scene you've seen, what is that like? Can you recount what was in it, even if you can't "picture" it? Or does this also prevent you from recalling the details of the scene?

I'm a musician, but don't "hear" music in my head. I have an extensive memory of lyrics, and can guess the next notes of a song, but I use my inner monologue to sing or hum it in my head, I don't hear it. I can recall the visuals of a movie scene similar to how I can tell you how my office is organized. It is a spatial memory of where things are and aligned with each other. I don't replay the scene in any sense of th…

It reminds me of a joke. It's better told in person but you get the idea:

A percussionist takes a day off and decides to see one of his orchestra's performances. The next day he's back and talking to one of the other percussionists. "How was it?" the other one asks.

"Unbelievable! You know the part where we go buhm buhm buhm buhm?"

"Yeah?"

"Well guess what the rest of the orchestra is doing?"

hums a spirited rendition of the William Tell Overture!

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#110

Post by Zealotux »

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #7
misthop wrote: post #3

Aphantasiac here, happy to discuss or answer any questions

What does you mother look like?

I have total aphantasia and this is how I usually answer: it's like having a picture of my mother in my head, only for it to be obfuscated by an opaque veil, and there's a system in my mind that can peak behind it and feed me informations. In the end: I can never visualise her, but I can "query" informations, and when I see her I match her immediately with what I know her to look like.
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