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Some people can't see mental images

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Re: Some people can't see mental images

#301

Post by hosh »

markhahn wrote: post #270
tbabb wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is some context: Early in the aphantasia discourse, someone asked a group I was in to do a mental exercise: Imagine an apple. Can you tell what color it is? What variety? Can you tell the lighting? Is it against a background? Does it have a texture? Imagine cutting into it. And so on. For me, not only was the color, variety, lighting, and texture crystal clear, but I noticed that when I mentally "cut into" the a…

but are those details fabricated on demand? I don't have any trouble following your path of increased detail, but if someone says "imagine an apple", I get a vaguely apple-shaped, generally redish object (I like cosmic crisp), which only becomes detailed if I "navigate my mental eye" closer.

I think that is pretty normal while dreaming, daydreaming, or awake if you don't have aphantasia. Someone skilled in neural-linguistic programming can guide someone into developing greater and greater details.

Psychedelics and certain meditative practices can enhance this effect. There are also specific practices that allow imagined object to take a life of its own.

That's in the private imaginative mindspace. There are other mindspaces. There was one particular dream where I can tell, it was procedurally generated on-demand. When I deliberately took an unusual turn, the entire realm stuttered as whole new areas got procedurally generated. There were other spaces where it was not like that.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#302

Post by Refreeze5224 »

pfgallagher wrote: post #155
anthk wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of the whole image, you just visualize the main aspects as vectors?

Your metaphor isn't bad, actually. I just don't visualize anything. It's more like a feeling of abstract relationships. It often feels like most of my brain is in RAM; I can usually recall things almost instantly. And if I can’t, I can do the trick where you think of something else and let your mind crunch in the background until it pops up. I should clarify that I can still imagine what a room looks like and what’s…

Your description matches my experience exactly, and I find it oddly comforting to know someone else has the same thing going on in their head.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#303

Post by raron »

vanadium1st wrote: post #281

Speaking of the Apple test, as many other commenters here I truly believe that people who describe themselves as being at 1 are actually much closer to 4, they just aren’t aware of it or don’t understand the concept well. https://lianamscott.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/f4c55-1_b... I’m an artist - I draw professionally and studied drawing in a group setting. It seems like a profession that would require the highes…

Maybe that are two different thing? Some may experience what is in their head the same or very similar way to how they would experience it if they would actually see it, but I think that doesn't mean that what is in their head must be static or photo-realistic. I suspect these are important factors, too, in a reference image you use for drawing.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#305

Post by saltcured »

cperciva wrote: post #243
pfgallagher wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your metaphor isn't bad, actually. I just don't visualize anything. It's more like a feeling of abstract relationships. It often feels like most of my brain is in RAM; I can usually recall things almost instantly. And if I can’t, I can do the trick where you think of something else and let your mind crunch in the background until it pops up. I should clarify that I can still imagine what a room looks like and what’s…

a feeling of abstract relationships This. If you ask me to imagine a triangle I'll start thinking about having three sides and three angles and the area is half of the base times the height and it's a rigid body and the angles add up to 180 degrees... but there's no visual aspect to it. Sometimes I wonder if aphantasia gave me an advantage in mathematics, because I had no trouble whatsoever with the concept of "abstr…

I think you have some abstract symbol capability that is not the opposite of imagery.

I lack imagery but also am nonverbal and hit limits in math. I am terrible at rote memorization or application of formulae.

I did well in math up to a point, which may have hurt me. I simply felt answers to quite a bit of algebra and some calculus, but it doesn't scale. I also got accused of cheating a couple times in primary school, when I could not explain my work when arriving at an answer very quickly.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#306

Post by Twirrim »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #220
Sharlin wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Problem is that there's actually a spectrum of vividity of mental imagery, but in popular discussion it's always seen as a binary on/off thing. An old post by Scott Alexander (16+ years, mind blown) discusses this, long before the term "aphantasia" became a thing [1]. There was a debate about what "imagination" actually means already in the late 1800s; some people were absolutely certain that it was just a metap…

Modern brain imaging techniques also weigh in on this issue. Mental imagery corresponds to voluntary activation of the visual cortex[1]. The quality of the self-reported imagery corresponds to the degree of activity in the visual cortex[2] while imagining some visual scene. People with aphantasia have little to no visual cortex activity. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4595480/ [2] https://www.ncbi.n…

I've been experimenting over the past year or so, and keep trying to visualise things. Part of this spun out from the fact that I can dream (I rarely seem to, or at least remember them), but when I do, I remember that it was a vivid real thing.

I actually feel like I'm closer than ever to getting towards visualisation. I've gone from a rock solid "zero" to "solid feeling, occasional split-second flash of something"

For most of the time with this exercise I was aiming for something simple. A red triangle in a blue square, but I'm not convinced that was an effective approach, I seem to be getting closer to the mark trying to picture something real.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#307

Post by retrac »

Twirrim wrote: post #306
hackinthebochs wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern brain imaging techniques also weigh in on this issue. Mental imagery corresponds to voluntary activation of the visual cortex[1]. The quality of the self-reported imagery corresponds to the degree of activity in the visual cortex[2] while imagining some visual scene. People with aphantasia have little to no visual cortex activity. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4595480/ [2] https://www.ncbi.n…

I've been experimenting over the past year or so, and keep trying to visualise things. Part of this spun out from the fact that I can dream (I rarely seem to, or at least remember them), but when I do, I remember that it was a vivid real thing. I actually feel like I'm closer than ever to getting towards visualisation. I've gone from a rock solid "zero" to "solid feeling, occasional split-second flash of something "…

When I want to close my eyes and distract myself, I've been visualizing the banana from the cover of that Velvet Underground album. (Not sure why I settled on that!) I can rotate it. I can peel it. With practice it has gotten larger and I can shift it away from the centre of the visual field. But I can't make it seem yellow.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#308

Post by vanadium1st »

raron wrote: post #303
vanadium1st wrote: post #281

Speaking of the Apple test, as many other commenters here I truly believe that people who describe themselves as being at 1 are actually much closer to 4, they just aren’t aware of it or don’t understand the concept well. https://lianamscott.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/f4c55-1_b... I’m an artist - I draw professionally and studied drawing in a group setting. It seems like a profession that would require the highes…

Maybe that are two different thing? Some may experience what is in their head the same or very similar way to how they would experience it if they would actually see it, but I think that doesn't mean that what is in their head must be static or photo-realistic. I suspect these are important factors, too, in a reference image you use for drawing.

I mean - it's either similar or it's not. Things I see with my eyes are definetely photo-realistic. So mental visualisations similar to that would also be photo-realistic. If they're not - they can have interesting qualities, but they're not similar.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#309

Post by ncruces »

kraftman wrote: post #260
teamonkey wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have aphantasia. I know what something looks like, I just can’t see it. It’s not like a written or verbal list though. I also have no internal voice so that wouldn’t make sense. It’s just like the concept of what I’m thinking of is right there in all its detail. Its extremely spatial - I’m thinking in 3D even if I’m not visualising it. On the visual side, sometimes if I try hard I can make out an amorphous blob. Mo…

If you think about something famous, like the Eiffel tower, or big ben, you don't picture them?

No, not at all.

A simple test I've seen mentioned is, ask someone this: “imagine a car, a fast car, zipping through a windy road… ok? (pause) now, what color was the car you saw?”

If you even need to think about it, you hadn't seen it.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#310

Post by [deleted] »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #127
jdadj wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t heard of Galtonism. From my experience as the colorblind child of native Russian speakers, it’s Daltonism (дальтони́зм). https://en.openrussian.org/en/colour-blind

Good lord, I had both of their wiki pages open, and STILL somehow D and G were the same letter in my mind. I should just delete my comment, but let it stand as a monument to my goof.

[deleted]
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