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Some people can't see mental images

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Re: Some people can't see mental images

#161

Post by godshatter »

pessimizer wrote: post #76

I simply do not buy any aspect of this. It is absolutely untestable. It's not just that I don't think people who can't see mental images exist, I don't think that you can prove that anyone does see mental images. It's pure introspection and self-reporting, and half of the scientists named had very odd, old-timey standards of evidence that led them to many very wrong conclusions in their fields. I couldn't say whether…

There was a study published by the University of Exeter in 2021 that showed the following:

rsfMRI revealed stronger connectivity between the visual–occipital network and several prefrontal regions (BAs 9, 10, 11) in the hyperphantasic group when compared with the aphantasic group

Here is a link to the paper: https://academic.oup.com/cercorcomms/article/2/2/tgab035/626...

So there does appear to be a way to potentially test for aphantasia that requires no self-reporting, just an attempt to visualize.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#162

Post by aurumque »

Simulacra wrote: post #3

Is this related to internal monologue? I don't see mentioned in my view.

There is a related set of experiences that articles like this tend to conflate.

* presence of internal monologue

* ability for visualization

* ability for audiation

* affective memory (remembering feelings)

* SDAM (weak autobiographical memory)

It speaks to the larger questions around the human experience, and that we are only now discovering the many ways it differs for each individual.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#163

Post by pessimizer »

godshatter wrote: post #161
pessimizer wrote: post #76

I simply do not buy any aspect of this. It is absolutely untestable. It's not just that I don't think people who can't see mental images exist, I don't think that you can prove that anyone does see mental images. It's pure introspection and self-reporting, and half of the scientists named had very odd, old-timey standards of evidence that led them to many very wrong conclusions in their fields. I couldn't say whether…

There was a study published by the University of Exeter in 2021 that showed the following: rsfMRI revealed stronger connectivity between the visual–occipital network and several prefrontal regions (BAs 9, 10, 11) in the hyperphantasic group when compared with the aphantasic group Here is a link to the paper: https://academic.oup.com/cercorcomms/article/2/2/tgab035/626... So there does appear to be a way to potentiall…

Thanks for the link.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#165

Post by YurgenJurgensen »

andy99 wrote: post #7

I’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.

It’s actually even worse than that. Not only am I unconvinced that aphantasia is real or merely a difference in the way people describe the same experience (either because of how they use language, or because of how their mental images are connected to their speech processing), but even if it were an experimentally verified phenomenon, people still talk about it like it’s a /thing you have/ instead of a /skill you failed to develop/.

I lack the ability to produce realistic images using sticks of charcoal, but I don’t consider this to be ‘acarbographism’ or something, I recognise that other people have put more effort into learning that skill than I have.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#166

Post by kayodelycaon »

darkmighty wrote: post #108
bigyikes wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve interrogated people about this but can never get a straight answer. —— “So you can really see things in your head when your eyes are closed?” Yeah! “And it’s as though you’re seeing the object in front of you?” Yeah, you don’t have that? “So it’s like you’re really seeing it? It’s the sensation of sight?“ Well… it’s kind of different. I’m not really seeing it. —— …and around we go. Personally, I can see images w…

I'd describe it as like having a second monitor in your desktop. It's not inherently "over" what I already see or anywhere physical, it's like in a different space. Sometimes it can feel like it's "behind" what I am seeing indeed (i.e. kind of over), but it can vary and I suspect that's just a learned position (I just tried and I can shift the position images 'feel where they are'). I don't see with full fidelity, I…

I have three different ways that vision seems to work with me.

1. Actually seeing something like in a dream.

2. A mental scratch pad I can draw on and use spatial awareness to navigate. (I see the code of applications as flying over a landscape or walking through a forest.)

3. Imagination, which uses whatever data vision gets turned into.

I'm not sure how common 2 is. A lot of my brain has broken parts and this scratchpad is used in place of logic. This works fine until I need to work on linear list of similar tokens and keep them in order, like math and some functional programming languages.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#167

Post by adt2bt »

This has always been interesting for me, as I think I have aphantasia but also can vividly experience taste in the same manner as if I'm eating foods.

In other words, if I think about, say, spaghetti & meatballs, I can feel the exact sensation of the taste of the spaghetti & meatballs. I can even vary aspects of the dish without much effort (e.g. adding dusted parmesan, basil, the pasta is more/less al dente, etc). I use this all the time when cooking, as I 'think with my tongue' and pre-taste what I think a dish will taste like as I'm considering what ingredients to add or different techniques to follow.

I think my experience with visualizing taste is what some people can do in their minds eye with images & sounds, yet I can barely visualize any images in my head when I close my eyes. Frustrating, but gives me a bit of hope. In my younger years I did not have this virtual food tasting ability, but I think I slowly gained it by paying close attention to the experience of eating food I made in order to improve my cooking ability.

I wonder if I can pay similar attention to the world around me and develop image visualization abilities over time.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#168

Post by pfgallagher »

FjordWarden wrote: post #160
pfgallagher wrote: post #145

I have aphantasia. Like many others, I am able to see images when I dream and very rarely in a hypnagogic state. My partner is on the opposite side of the spectrum; she can conjure mental images with ease. Our differences in that respect have led to a lot of interesting conversations. I think aphantasia is quite misunderstood by people able to visualize. I can remember how things look, have no issues identifying face…

After coming down from the shock of learning there are people like you I was even more amazed that one of the founding engineers of Pixar, and a giant in computer graphics, also has this condition. He even did a survey that found his artists where more likely to be on the aphantasia spectrum than managers. Dunno, maybe some people are so driven to create what they cannot think or see.

I’ve heard about that! My partner and I have both been learning to draw this year. I’m pretty decent at drawing observationally / from reference, but I haven’t tried much from memory. I imagine she’d be much better at that side of things. I’ve also noticed I’m not great at coming up with initial ideas or visual concepts, but once I have a topic or direction, I can absolutely run with it.

I also think it makes sense why a lot of software engineers (myself included) have aphantasia. Being “rational” is arguably easier when you’re not influenced by the emotional weight of images. Maybe we’re even less predisposed to PTSD, since we can’t visually relive things in the same way. My mind still races at night like anyone else’s, but it’s all non-visual. Just endless inner monologue instead of a reel of images. Couldn't count sheep if I tried!

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#170

Post by bigyikes »

k__ wrote: post #83
bigyikes wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s suppose you have perfect recall. Pull up the image on your phone and look at it. Now close your eyes and imagine the image as accurately as you can. Is it as though you didn’t close your eyes at all? Do you see it the same way as when your eyes are open?

No. When I'm fully awake, the mental images are more like someone attached a new camera with a field of view that ends at the edges of the object/scene I try to generate.

Okay, forget everything outside that field of view in your real vision.

If you could crop your real field of view somehow to just the photo in question, then would it be as though nothing changed?

(Like, I get that things outside the phone image would change, but does the image your imagining change? Does the sensation change?)

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