I find it easier to believe that this is a failure of communication.
Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
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Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
#62If 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…
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Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
#63[flagged]
Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I learned about Aphantasia about eight months ago, and it really sent me for a trip. I have no problems visualizing in my mind and sometimes can get lost in it, to me that’s what daydreaming is. I discussed it with some of my friends, and it seems to exist on a spectrum. The most different from me was one friend who had to really focus to visualize in his mind, and even then he could only do so in black and white. I…
We have these common concepts which are actually very personal everywhere. Even with good eyes the color perception differs a lot between different people. For most it's obvious that this is red and this is blue, but in between the colors it gets very fuzzy. The same goes for sounds and smell and touch, so for every sense.
Totally, the gold/blue dress picture is a perfect example of that[0].
I think with aphantasia, what makes it so interesting to me is just how much I consider visualizing in my mind to be core to how I think and understand things as well. It's not as subtle or isolated as a reaction to external stimuli but more fundamental to who I am along sitting along side my inner monologue.
[0] https://slate.com/technology/2017/04/heres-why-people-saw-th...
Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have aphantasia, and I don't feel handicapped at all. The only thing where I really notice differences is when trying to describe people. Since I can't visualize them in my head, I can only describe "known facts", like "they have brown hair". I would make a lousy crime witness...
This was my biggest puzzle as a child: how do all those people in crime shows describe suspects? And was it just made up?
Same here. The scene where the witness describes the criminal's face in detail while the sketch artist can render a perfect drawing - I assumed that was pure Hollywood fantasy. Then I met people who could effortlessly recall/draw to that level and realized that wow it's real, but not for me.
Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is real. My partner has it. Interestingly, she is really good it visualizing 3D concepts in her mind, but not images. For example, when she walks through an apartment she can instantly draw a blueprint. Or when we move in multi-story building, she knows exactly where we are conceptually (I always get lost). So, these two things don't seem to be connected.
Interesting. My wife swears she has no visual mind, but she has remarkable spatial awareness when it comes to “this object will fit in that space, and must go through this sequence of manoeuvres to reach it” - she’d have Dirk Gently’s sofa up the stairs in a whistle. She does get lost in car parks and shops, however, so it appears that either there’s a separate system for navigational reasoning, or she just doesn’t a…
That's interesting! It's very similar with my partner
Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
How so? A DB schema is not visual: it's something that lives inside a DBMS. Boxes with arrows is a way to represent it. Text is another one.
>A DB schema is not visual How is it not visual? >Boxes with arrows is a way to represent it. Text is another one. Boxes with arrows are clearly visual. The text, at least, for me just is a representation of those arrows and boxes.
> How is it not visual?
(not the person you're responding to) It's not an image. It's a concept. I don't know how to explain the difference because I also only know it from the explanations of my partner. For example, she says that if she imagines a house it looks like a schematic drawing of a house (almost like if a child would draw a house), not like a realistic photograph of a house.
Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
#68There 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 reprogramming our visual hardware to form abstract concepts in the minds eye rather than visualizing concrete objects.
Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
#69I‘m also a self diagnosed aphant. I was so relived when I found out, school was very frustrating since there are so many learning methods that are built for people with a mind that’s able to picture stuff also hard to remember faces, I usually only know some facts about people, like they have red hair, brown eyes… even family members
but I can at least hear sounds in my mind :) I read that this is a similar spectrum thing where some people hear nothing and others can replay everything
Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
#70How do you know if you have it?
Quick test: Try to imagine the following and then answer the questions beneath.
Imagine a table with a ball on it. A person is approaching the table, pushes the ball gently, and the balls starts to roll.
Questions:
(1) What color has the ball?
(2) Is the person male or female?
(3) What material is the table made of?
(4) When you answered questions (1)-(3), did you know the answer beforehand, or did you think about when you were reading the questions?
Depending on your answer to question (4) you can assume if you have it or not.