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Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

theguardian.com

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Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#251

Post by matthewsinclair »

neongreen wrote: post #88

Alert: if you were happy to learn about aphantasia, you might also be happy to learn about SDAM (severely deficient autobiographical memory), which I think is correlated with aphantasia. SDAM is when you know facts about your life, but can’t walk through any or almost any episodes . Apparently normal people can actually re-live episodes from their past, step by step or.. idk. Somehow. And I don’t know what I had for…

Ha. That describes me perfectly. I have heard the distinction between “episodic memory” and “semantic memory” made before, and so I just thought that my semantic memory was a lot stronger than my episodic memory. I hadn’t realised it had a specific name. Thanks for sharing.

FWIW, I’m also very much aphantasic (I’d be a 4.5/5.0 on the test in Guardian article).

Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#252

Post by sethammons »

SaidinWoT wrote: post #103
listenallyall wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't think of what a STOP sign looks like? Or your country's flag?

Not who you asked, but also have aphantasia. "think of" is far too ambiguous here to really meaningfully drill into the differences of _how_ people think about things. I know that a stop sign is a red octagon (with a white boundary) with the word "STOP" in the center. I could draw you a plausible picture of one without issue. Thinking about it just involves no imagery. Information you might rely on visualization for,…

I have a vivid imagination. My stop sign visualized as looking up to your right at a stop sign a few feet above your head, so a proportionally distorted octagon. The coating is metallic red and near-white and has a mild flaky look to it as some colored metal has, with a hint of rainbow from the sun that lights it from my back. There is a standard metal post with holes in it. There is a mostly blue sky as background framed with small leaved, large trees. I know that if I paned down, I'd see grass with small, yellow flowers.

When I lose my wife at the store, I often realize I would be useless in describing what she was wearing if I had to. If friends were over, I wont recall their attire unless it specifically came up, then I might remember it for years.

Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#253

Post by Throw_Away_1049 »

iand wrote: post #11
constantcrying wrote: post #3

I still have a hard time believing this is actually real. I also don't see how you actually could do many jobs with this condition. At least I couldn't imagine doing any job I ever head without the ability to manipulate visual information in my head.

It's real and I have it. I was astonished when I discovered other people see pictures in their head. It doesn't restrict my creative thinking but I am a spatial thinker. When I solve an imaginary logic problem such as advancing the hands on a clock I can't see the before and after states but I can infer their positions by the directions they must point and then read the new time from that.

Wait, do people see images of a clock in their mind? Like you, I know spatially where the hands should point so I assume this is what “seeing” is. Do people see a clock… like a legit visual when they close their eyes?

Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#254

Post by Twirrim »

listenallyall wrote: post #98
edgyquant wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think entirely in words, no images. No sounds. Just concepts that are mapped to words. It blows my mind some people actually see images when they think

You can't think of what a STOP sign looks like? Or your country's flag?

I know what they look like. Could describe them to you. Draw them on a piece of paper. Can't visualise one in my head.

Heck, I can't even visualise what my wife and kids look like, something that my wife finds astonishing (and sad).

I'm useless at art, for the most part, with no visual imagination to work with.

Yesterday we were at a clothes store, and I could tell my youngest that I didn't think a particular set of clothes she was trying suited her, and was able to make specific suggestions. I can look at clothes and decide if they'd suit. Not because I could see them together in my head, or picture her wearing them, but because I've learned the rules, for want of a better way to put it.

Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#255

Post by Throw_Away_1049 »

perrygeo wrote: post #68

There seems to be a higher-than-average incidence of Aphantasia in tech folks, at least as self-reported. Our visual cortex is a huge part of our brain and in the absence of visual input can be "rewired" to other purposes. Theory: I have no evidence for this but its plausible that our obsession with solving hard, abstract logic puzzles all day (and night) somehow hijacks part of our visual cortex. Effectively reprogr…

I asked a non-tech loved one right now and she doesn’t see anything either. I almost suspect people are claiming they “see” things when they don’t and it’s just a deep understanding of what something looks like.

Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#256

Post by grugagag »

markers wrote: post #191

I got aphantasia from Covid, apparently it's an extremely rare side effect - so rare I've only found a handful of people on the entire internet who've experienced it. So I happen to know how it is to live both with and without the ability to visualize, I used to be extremely good at visualizing. Most major impact (apart from the loss of ability to daydream) is that my memory is worse, as my memory was very much based…

Im not sure if my total aphantasia comes from a burnout or whether I was born with it. After a severe work related burnout, when things came to, some things did not return to normal. I have learned about aphantasia recently and did not test before the burnout.

Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#257

Post by Twirrim »

saghm wrote: post #147
majiy wrote: post #31

If somebody told me "image you are walking a winding path. To your right there is a wood, to your left there is a mountain". The image I see in my mind is basically an empty paper, with an arrow pointing to the left labeled "mountain", an arrow to the right labeled "wood", and an arrow to the middle labeled "path". Maybe, maybe the mountain is represented with two lines /\ and the path is a winding line ~~~ but that…

> I have also great problems identifying faces, don't know if there is a connection. > On the other hand, I can vividly imagine sounds, including voices and music. I'm the same way. I can almost replay entire songs in my head, and if I hear a repeated sound I can replay it slowed down in my head to count it, but in college I discovered that I had trouble recognizing faces of people when I'd meet them a second time. T…

I don't have perfect pitch, but I can hit concert A perfectly. One of the sounds I can vividly recall is the sound of an orchestra tuning!

Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#258

Post by harimau777 »

I've sometimes wondered if I could have aphantasia or perhaps be low enough on the visual imagery spectrum to have some of the practical effects of aphantasia.

When I try to visualize an object, I can in some sense visualize it but it feels very indistinct. It's like I can't see the object as a whole only the specific details I focus on. For example, I have a friend who wears circular glasses and has a handlebar mustache. I can bring up a general image of "circular glasses" or "handlebar mustache" in my mind. However, I cannot imaging his face with glasses and a mustache. It almost feels like the way that you "see" things when you are only half watching a TV show or are partially zoned out while driving. In some sense you are seeing them but it's difficult to pull up details.

When I visualize a scene, I'm not sure I "see" it so much as I form a spatial map of the scene.

I also find that the "images" that do get stored in my memory are more like impressions. Maybe in some sense I can "visualize" them, but they are really more like impressions of how they make me feel or the "vibe" that I get from them.

Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#259

Post by dmd »

lannisterstark wrote: post #221
neongreen wrote: post #88

Alert: if you were happy to learn about aphantasia, you might also be happy to learn about SDAM (severely deficient autobiographical memory), which I think is correlated with aphantasia. SDAM is when you know facts about your life, but can’t walk through any or almost any episodes . Apparently normal people can actually re-live episodes from their past, step by step or.. idk. Somehow. And I don’t know what I had for…

>And I don’t know what I had for breakfast today ಠ_ಠ what the fuck

I am also like this. Why would I remember that? I don't remember almost anything I don't work to remember or is unusual. It's amazing to me that people do.

(I also have aphantasia and find it extremely difficult to believe that the entire thing isn't just a misunderstanding of language.)

Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#260

Post by dinkleberg »

perrygeo wrote: post #68

There seems to be a higher-than-average incidence of Aphantasia in tech folks, at least as self-reported. Our visual cortex is a huge part of our brain and in the absence of visual input can be "rewired" to other purposes. Theory: I have no evidence for this but its plausible that our obsession with solving hard, abstract logic puzzles all day (and night) somehow hijacks part of our visual cortex. Effectively reprogr…

I think that would be hard to gauge. From what I recall supposedly ~4% of people have aphantasia (iirc this includes minor forms, not just complete). If there are hundreds of thousands of people on this forum, there are likely thousands with aphantasia.

And whenever some niche topic comes up that relates to some group, they all come out of the woodwork to congregate. I certainly do whenever this topic comes up.

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