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Aphantasia: A life without mental images

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Re: Aphantasia: A life without mental images

#71

Post by tgb »

charles2013 wrote: post #44
saalweachter wrote: post #40

Is there a more objective test than telling someone to visualize something and then asking, "Well, could you visualize it?"? For instance, are there visual tasks a person with or without aphantasia objectively could not perform? Like a psych 101 student, I immediately think I have a touch of any vaguely described mental condition, but I also know I probably don't.

some questions on IQ tests depict rotated images of figures, and ask things like: > can the two figures in each set be made identical by rotating them in space? [0] this isn't my domain, so without knowing any better i would kind of expect the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire and its abridged version to ask similar questions. but if they didn't, and you wanted to create another test, here's where i'd start:…

Other commenters and myself feel we have low visualization ability but do well on those tests. In fact, at one point for me they were significantly my best area in a battery of similar IQ-like tests.

Re: Aphantasia: A life without mental images

#72

Post by ajb »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #67
ajb wrote: post #66

"But this year scientists have described a condition, aphantasia, in which some people are unable to visualise mental images." Actually this was discovered by Sir Francis Galton more than 200 years ago: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Galton/imagery.htm Nor is it particularly rare. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is not the experience itself, but the fact that people are so surprised when they discover that other p…

It does fundamentally divide humanity into those that can imagine, and those that can't. Its not unreasonable to guess others experience the world similarly to oneself; not at all interesting that folks would be surprised by that.

It's perhaps an exaggeration to describe them as 'those that can't imagine': Galton noted that inability to visualise was much more prevalent among his colleagues, the scientific men of the day, than among the general public.

Re: Aphantasia: A life without mental images

#73

Post by spdionis »

tgb wrote: post #69
jacobolus wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your self-description sounds entirely typical to me. I don’t think most people can imagine detailed photographic images (e.g. of faces), though there do seem to be some who can, like certain autistic savants. It seems likely that people’s external verbalizations of their internal experience vary widely enough that it’s difficult or even impossible to gain a useful understanding of that experience from survey answers.…

What about people who complain about how a character looks in a movie adaptation of a book? I never see characters in a book so the movie can do whatever they want as far as I care. But other people get quite indignant over this. Can anyone here attest to what level of imagination one has to do that? I strongly suspect you're over generalizing from your own experiences, this might be a way to test it.

It's just that we have predefined looks for a given type of characterization that sometimes adaptations don't get quite right. With time I've gotten over the fact that yes, a character from an adaptation probably will look different from what I imagined and I expect it as a normal thing.

Think of it as personal stereotypes. For example I often imagine how a character looks before getting to the physical description and in that case it's very hard to change my predefined image. Even if e.g. the description says it's a tall blonde character with a big nose if I had already imagined the character small and with black hair I can't change that throughout the book. I've actually tried to and it's very hard. If I concentrate I'll get the correct image out but next time I'll encounter the character I will automatically think of the previous picture.

Personally I think this is pretty regular and other people are like that too, but how can I be sure?

Re: Aphantasia: A life without mental images

#74

Post by ewzimm »

tgb wrote: post #69
jacobolus wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your self-description sounds entirely typical to me. I don’t think most people can imagine detailed photographic images (e.g. of faces), though there do seem to be some who can, like certain autistic savants. It seems likely that people’s external verbalizations of their internal experience vary widely enough that it’s difficult or even impossible to gain a useful understanding of that experience from survey answers.…

What about people who complain about how a character looks in a movie adaptation of a book? I never see characters in a book so the movie can do whatever they want as far as I care. But other people get quite indignant over this. Can anyone here attest to what level of imagination one has to do that? I strongly suspect you're over generalizing from your own experiences, this might be a way to test it.

Maybe it's difficult to judge because people don't usually talk about it. I'd say I can visualize things just as vividly as I would experience when I look at them. That is, I won't notice every detail, but I don't notice every detail even when I'm staring right at something. I can look at something, look away for a while and visualize it, then look back at it and compare the subjective experience, and it's pretty much the same. It's more along the lines of getting the same mental stimulation of recognition and experience as I would get if I were looking at something, and it's the same as other senses. I can imagine myself on a beach, see the contrast of colors of leaves and the sky, hear the waves, feel the courseness of the sand, smell the sea, and I know from experience that if I were actually there, I would have the same sensations except I couldn't turn them off easily.

Re: Aphantasia: A life without mental images

#76

Post by tempestn »

ewzimm wrote: post #74
tgb wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about people who complain about how a character looks in a movie adaptation of a book? I never see characters in a book so the movie can do whatever they want as far as I care. But other people get quite indignant over this. Can anyone here attest to what level of imagination one has to do that? I strongly suspect you're over generalizing from your own experiences, this might be a way to test it.

Maybe it's difficult to judge because people don't usually talk about it. I'd say I can visualize things just as vividly as I would experience when I look at them. That is, I won't notice every detail, but I don't notice every detail even when I'm staring right at something. I can look at something, look away for a while and visualize it, then look back at it and compare the subjective experience, and it's pretty muc…

See, descriptions like this make me think that many people do indeed see clearer mental pictures than I (grandparent post) do. I'm going to have to do some informal surveys of friends and family!

Re: Aphantasia: A life without mental images

#77

Post by donutz »

Bjartr wrote: post #42
chime wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about this - Picture an elephant sideways. Don't let the elephant move. Is the trunk on the left or on the right side? If they can't answer, then it's possible they have Aphantasia.

Might want to say "side-on" instead, I rotated the elephant around the wrong axis and was confused for a moment.

Me too. I had the trunk at the bottom. :-p

Re: Aphantasia: A life without mental images

#78

Post by Double_Cast »

kazinator wrote: post #26

> Close your eyes and imagine walking along a sandy beach and then gazing over the horizon as the Sun rises. How clear is the image that springs to mind? Very clear; I see some cons cells, making up a list, whose CAR holds the symbol BEACH, the main connective of an abstract syntax tree describing the whole situation.

https://xkcd.com/224/
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