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Some people can't see mental images

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Re: Some people can't see mental images

#331

Post by vanviegen »

comprev wrote: post #215
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…

I can _remember_ the properties of an apple - approximate size, weight (my hand does not instantly drop to the floor due to its weight), etc. I can't _imagine_ an apple in my hand if you defined the colour, size or weight (for example, purple, 50cm diameter and 100Kg). In my mind I am recalling a _memory_ of holding an apple in my hand - not imagining the one according to your specifications. One example I can give i…

> I can't _imagine_ an apple in my hand if you defined the colour, size or weight (for example, purple, 50cm diameter and 100Kg).

I think most people couldn't imagine holding an apple specced like a washing machine in one hand. :-)

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#332

Post by Matterless »

saltcured wrote: post #291
vanadium1st wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you're standing in front of a mirror, can you ask yourself a question and then answer it without saying anything out loud?

Not the GP, but I find it hard to even respond to your question. The whole framing seems unrelatable, but I can try to read between the lines to understand your intention. Normally, my mental experience does not include anything that feels like questions nor answers, nor other words really. Being verbal is almost like climbing into my verbal mecha-suit and piloting it for a while, which I am doing right now to type t…

You pretty well describe my experience as well. So much of recall for me is "just knowing" and already having the mental "thing" at hand in the moment (rather than starting with any perceptible intention) and I do wonder if our kind of thinker might end up more devastatingly affected by age/illness-related memory issues because we simply take for granted /just knowing/.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#333

Post by aatd86 »

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.

Is your mental imagery 100% under your control or does it seem that your visualization doesn't fully abide by your own will?

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#334

Post by Matterless »

anthonypasq wrote: post #135
WithinReason wrote: post #18

I wonder what happens when you e.g. flash a 5 digit number to a person with aphantasia for say 0.1 seconds. Can they read it from memory? Or are they worse at this task than people with mental imagery? How about mentally rotating 3D objects?

that was what i was wondering. if i showed someone a strange sort of asymmetrical 3d object and told them to tell me what it would look like if there were looking at it from the back, it seems like it would be almost impossible to do.

If it's something I'm capable of figuring out, then I'll just know the answer (and I guess I'm pretty good at this sort of thing). I recognize that that's a terrible non-explanation but I can't explain what's happening outside of my awareness. I'm just good with spatial problems. I can't /visualize/ a damn thing but that doesn't appear to be necessary.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#336

Post by skinkestek »

YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #283
skinkestek wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I understood it was the apple on a table test: I was asked to close my eyes and think about an apple. if you do it now, close your eyes for about 10 - 20 seconds and think very hard about an apple on a table. spacer spacer spacer spacer then immediately after opening your eyes tell me what color the apple was. For me and many others it is an absurd question. We only thought about the thing apple on the thing…

The apple was red. I didn’t even try to imagine anything. Apples are just conceptually red by default. I can also tell you that it was tart, and crisp. I didn’t imagine those sensations either, they were just the first words that came to my mind when thinking about apples. The table is brown. I didn’t try to imagine anything table either, but the table in my kitchen, where there might be apples, is brown. Can you see…

My guess is you are affected. You remind me of myself before I realised just how big the difference really is.

People who see images don’t just imagine them or "know apples are red" - they actually see them. I think a couple of comments in this discussion described it as controlled hallucinations. Not scary, rather something useful they can summon on demand.

You can deny it all you want, but there are people who once had a rich, vivid imagination, lost it, and can describe what changed.

I’m a weird edge case myself - I sometimes experience it briefly, right before falling asleep or just after waking up.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#337

Post by skinkestek »

suddenlybananas wrote: post #282
loco5niner wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a confusion of terms. I can easily conjure up picture-quality images in my head, whether my eyes are open or closed. Compare that to my wife who says she can't even see my face in her head, at all, and has a hard time recognizing faces to the point where she asked my not to do anything about the red dot on my face (broken capillaries) because that's one way she recognizes that it's me. She can't see images i…

Prosopagnosia is not what aphantasia is.

No, but it wouldn't be surprising if they might be somewhat correlated?

I can recognize my wife easily now, but the first few months as we dated I was always scared that I wouldn't see her because I don't know what she looks like, I just recognize her and everyone else when I see them.

To the degree I have any day to day mental imagery it only works as a very very brief "overlay" when my eyes are open and I only see certain pictures:

a passport image of my Mom that I have in a photo book

a picture of my wife before we married that is my phone background and that I therefore have seen many times

the wedding photo of my parents from the hallway as a kid (even though I meet them a few times a year and often see other pictures of them)

And these images are faint, overlayed on other images and disappear in milliseconds.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#338

Post by ____tom____ »

agentcoops wrote: post #251
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 is really a fundamental difference as many studies now have shown---and I can attest from personal experience. Honestly, if you have to ask the question there's a pretty high chance you are: everyone at some level believes that their own inner experience generalizes to the rest of humanity, but it's those with aphantasia who thereby believe that everyone else's description is just a manner of speaking ("they, l…

Aphantasia has nothing to do with emotional recall. You make the first assertion of this I've ever heard.

I am mostly aphantasaic, but have no trouble at all remembering emotions.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#340

Post by lm28469 »

YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #284
lm28469 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people tell me they can see things in their mind I usually ask something like: "imagine a ball, can you see it?" "yes" "ok what color is it? " I never heard anyone say anything other than a variation of "hm I don't know". It's just an anecdote but still

“Yes — I can imagine it. A simple sphere, maybe sitting in a soft pool of light.” “I’m picturing it as a bright red ball, glossy and catching a bit of light on one side.” Great, huh? Except that’s what ChatGPT said when I asked it those two questions. It certainly isn’t picturing anything. If a robot which only ‘thinks’ in terms of chain-of-thought of abstract tokens can act as if it truly sees things, what makes you…

Not everything is about AI, I don't give a shit about what chatgpt thinks
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