Some people can't see mental images • Hacker News Board

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#21

Post by bena » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:23 PM UTC

sharkjacobs wrote: post #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.

This is the fundamental question about experience.

You may be "right". What you consider to be "seeing" things in one's head may be not what's happening in that person's mind. What they call "seeing" may be something else.

The best way I can describe it is essentially generating a memory. If I were instructed to picture an apple in my mind, I could imagine a hand holding up an bog standard Red Delicious. I can imagine it free-floating. And it would be much like when I remember what happened yesterday for instance. Of course, we get into whether or not we "see" the memory or not.

So, if you are saying you do not consider yourself to have mental images, what, to your best ability to describe it, do you do when you remember an event?

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#22

Post by rehevkor5 » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:23 PM UTC

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.

There's no diagnostic test for it. So is it real?

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#23

Post by YcYc10 » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:23 PM UTC

zeryx wrote: post #6

That'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.

I was about to write something almost exactly this. However I can "hear something" if I try but definitely not picture something in the literal sense.

Edit: I also have trouble recognising the faces of people I've only met once or twice, and I'm assuming the two things are related. Do you have the same?

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#24

Post by rayiner » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:23 PM UTC

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.

I can basically do a Google Street View of places I’ve been before, seeing what I’d be seeing if I was there. It’s not as clear as being there and having my eyes open, and th animation is jerky, but it’s in color, and I have the same spatial sense of where things are relative to where I am mentally standing.

For the most part, I can’t “think” about things except maybe mental math. I see things, and I talk to myself in my head.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#25

Post by Amorymeltzer » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:24 PM UTC

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.

YMMV, but for me, the image on en.Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia> made it easy for me to understand. That and having a frank conversation with someone close to me: "Wait, you just think of something and see it, like a picture or real life?" "Wait, you actually see anything?"

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#26

Post by abetusk » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:24 PM UTC

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.

The test is this:

Close your eyes and try to visualize an apple. Do this for 30 seconds or so. Try to visualize the skin, the reflection, the texture, the stem, the depth, etc. Try to hold a stable mental picture of that apple.

After the 30 seconds, rate your ability to picture the apple from 1 to 5, where 1 is complete inability and 5 is as if you were looking at a picture of an apple for those 30 seconds. 1 is aphantasia.

Another idea is to recall a vivid dream you had. I think most people would describe it as being part of a movie or reality. While awake, are you able to recreate scenes in vivid detail as if you were dreaming? 5 for complete parity and 1 for not at all. 1 is aphantasia.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#27

Post by tekacs » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:24 PM UTC

ourguile wrote: post #2

https://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.

Have you seen the Aphantasia Apples?

https://lianamscott.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/f4c55-1_b...

As in: if you look at this image, can you place yourself on a scale of 1 - 5 of with what kind of fidelity you can picture an apple if you try to imagine it?

I'm a 5 for example, and in asking many people this question I've gotten a solid spectrum of answers from 1 - 5. Generally in a single group of a handful of people I'll get several different numbers.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#28

Post by mnmalst » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:24 PM UTC

bigyikes wrote: post #15

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.

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 am the same and I am not convinced people can really - see - things. Like, when I close my eyes, I see the inside of my eye lids, the blackness. When I then try to imagine a candle for example there is no candle appearing in the darkness, I just remember how a candle is shaped its parts and similar characteristics. I see nothing.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#29

Post by colechristensen » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:25 PM UTC

deadbabe wrote: post #9

I 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.

There are several levels of this. There are people who can do things as though they see but have no conscious access to the interpreted visual information. Or they can do something that requires vision with one hand but not the other.

You can think of it like a bunch of different subsystems responsible for different kinds of tasks and some of them can be broken so the connections between them don't work.

Read Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks for a lot of case studies.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#30

Post by racingmars » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:25 PM UTC

drdec wrote: post #5

Simulacra wrote: post #3

Is 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.

From everything I've read about aphantasia, I'm certain it described me -- I have absolutely no ability to consciously "visualize" things in my head (I was also surprised to learn that some/most people sometimes experience a smell sensation if they recall smells, or "hear" music when they think about music or have a song stuck in their head, etc.)

Really the only thing in my head is my internal monologue. If I'm thinking about something I've seen, it's my internal monologue "saying," with words, physical attributes I remember about it. If a song is stuck in my head, it's my internal monologue (in my own voice) signing the lyrics or my own voice humming the tune in my head. No sensation of it being the original artist or the actual instruments, it's 100% my own voice in my own head.

I have a friend who says she does not have any inner monologue at all, and thinks entirely visually. I can't imagine! We're on the pretty extreme opposite ends of the spectrum of how we think, apparently.