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Some people can't see mental images

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Re: Some people can't see mental images

#61

Post by vorbits »

abetusk wrote: post #26
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 apha…

But what does it mean "visualize" ? I can "think" of an apple and all it's detail, but I wouldn't describe any visual sensation. If I had to draw the apple I could draw it detail, right down the the variation in colors on it's skin. But no sense of this experience feels like a visual sensation. It feels like "thinking". To me, the act of closing my eyes emphasizes that this isn't a visual sensation for me, because with my eyes closed, I see darkness.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#62

Post by fellowniusmonk »

bena wrote: post #34
fellowniusmonk wrote: post #17

I developed aphantasia around 13 after a series of heart procedures where I had to be under. Evaluating qualia in others is extremely difficult/philosophically impossible, I have pre/post expierence with both states of being. I can still somewhat conjure up imagery from prior to the procedure series, it almost feels like I can see them, my mother's face, my father face, kinda of, it did not effect my dreams or abilit…

Thank you for sharing your experience. So, for you at least, there is/was a significant difference between "seeing things in your mind" and not being able to. Have you ever gone under any studies or tests to compare your brain activity to others?

No, if there was a study I would join it. I wish I had done an MRI in my "pre" state, the change was very rapid.

You'll see a bunch of people always pile into these aphantasia threads and basically show a bias towards their own qualia being the only type of existing experience and the whole thing being mere semantic differences to describe the same mental function.

It really boggles my mind, it's like in HS when I told people I was mildly color blind and they literally took it as being "like, blind?". I get that from a bunch of high schoolers, it's very odd to see in what are presumably adults on this site.

Those people are simply incorrect, I and many like me didn't have congenital aphantasia, it's well established in the literature.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#63

Post by 1bpp »

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.

I still struggle to believe that some can't. There's just always been an abstract 'canvas' separate from the one signals from my eyes end up on and I can 'draw' on it by thinking about visual stimulus, and it's hazy but perceptibly there, the same way I 'hear' a song when I think about it. When this subject comes up I also always want to ask if people with aphantasia can hear sounds or music in their head. Or a taste or smell, etc..

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#64

Post by altruios »

mnmalst wrote: post #40
abetusk wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 apha…

Are you really saying you can see an apple in the same way you see an apple with eyes opened? The exact same way? So if you close your eyes, imagine an apple and then look at an apple that someone holds in front of your eye, the apple looks exactly the same? As if you could look through your closed eye lids?

Some people can project the image of an apple into the real world. As in, they are able to imagine an apple on the table that they see with their eyes. They 'see' it, but see that it's a projection. It's a lot like when you have two very similar images (except one change), and you cross your eyes such that they overlap to highlight the change (it's ghostly, as it's only seen in one eye). Same Idea, only instead of the other eye, that projection is coming from your brain.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#65

Post by Sharlin »

levocardia wrote: post #11

The most astounding thing to me (able to form mental images just fine thanks) is that aphantasia does not cause more problems. Naively I would have assumed such a condition would cause problems navigating abstract problems, nearly as badly as actual blindness impairs physical navigation.

One of the "big" things I've come to understand is that there really are very different ways to think, but yet it seems that they all have more or less the same "expressive power", up to some natural variance in how good people are at specific tasks like navigation.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#66

Post by the_af »

zephyrthenoble wrote: post #60

I think an interesting different way to talk about aphantasia is not, "Can you see an apple when you close your eyes" but more along the linked of, "Can you mentally edit the visual reality you see?" A common exercise while being in the back seat of a car while I was young was to imagine someone in a skateboard riding along the power lines on the side of the road, keeping pace with our car. It's not literally overrid…

> A common exercise while being in the back seat of a car while I was young was to imagine someone in a skateboard riding along the power lines on the side of the road, keeping pace with our car.

Oh, I've done this! I think many kids have. I remember a moment in my childhood when it was ninja turtles riding on those hoverboards, while I was bored watching outside the window of the back seat. Riding along the power lines, and occasionally katana-cutting something in the way.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#67

Post by ourguile »

tekacs wrote: post #27
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 peop…

I have seen it and unfortunately, I'm a 5. I quite literally cannot picture an apple in any form. I understand what I'm supposed to be picturing but when I try there's nothing that appears. It's fascinating to me too, since I typically have quite vivid dreams and I've been able to lucid dream on a number of occasions.

Now, I've chatted with friends, and my one friend is close to a 2, or maybe a 1 from how he described it (being able to visualize the apple and rotate it 3-dimensionally).

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#68

Post by mike_ivanov »

nemomarx wrote: post #12
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.

Do you see them in dreams? I normally struggle to visualize things but when I'm half asleep my imagination suddenly has color and detail that normally doesn't happen when I try to picture stuff

Not the OP - I think it's the same process. The difference is in what my inner narrator is doing. When I asleep it is almost always gone, and this is when I typically see things in full color. When awake, my attention is split between listening to its storytelling and the mental imagery, which I believe makes the latter more dull. I noticed that the narrator is more loud when I'm in a minor mental state, like tired or annoyed. When happy/refreshed - there is no voice in my head and I can "see" things very clearly, especially their colors. So, I started looking for ways to divert my attention from the narrator. The most effective seems to keep the narrator busy with commenting on my breath ("in" and "out"), got some boost of mental clarity from that.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#69

Post by AstroBen »

1bpp wrote: post #63
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.

I still struggle to believe that some can't . There's just always been an abstract 'canvas' separate from the one signals from my eyes end up on and I can 'draw' on it by thinking about visual stimulus, and it's hazy but perceptibly there, the same way I 'hear' a song when I think about it. When this subject comes up I also always want to ask if people with aphantasia can hear sounds or music in their head. Or a tast…

I have no idea if I have aphantasia or not but the comparison between sound is interesting

I can very clearly imagine sound or music in my head. My visual imagination is at like 20% of that and it's a struggle

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#70

Post by kbrkbr »

racingmars wrote: post #30
drdec wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thin…

Yes, that. Same here.

I still remember (semantically) that my parents laughed at me, when they told me to count sheep to fall asleep and I told them all I can see is darkness and white dots when I close my eyes. They probably thought I was joking.

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