Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Some people can't see mental images

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 388 posts

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#81

Post by Anonyneko »

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…

I can visualize an apple, somewhat vaguely, but I've never been able to hold a stable mental picture of anything for longer that a split-second. It just blinks out of existence the moment I "see" it, which makes it rather dysfunctional...

Not at all the case with sounds though, I can play back some of the music tracks I listened a lot to, flawed of course but still recognizable. My brain even starts doing it on its own at night, not letting me fall asleep.

Imagination is weird.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#82

Post by redhed »

rayiner wrote: post #24
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.

I can basically do a Google Street View of places I’ve been before, seeing what I’d be seeing if I was there. It’s not as clear as being there and having my eyes open, and th animation is jerky, but it’s in color, and I have the same spatial sense of where things are relative to where I am mentally standing. For the most part, I can’t “think” about things except maybe mental math. I see things, and I talk to myself i…

I have the same thing, I can "walk" through my childhood home. I see how the living room was set up, I can walk from there to my bedroom and "see" everything. Honestly if I had good art skills I feel like I could draw it out pretty well. However I would in no way describe it as looking like I'm there at the real thing or looking at photograph, not even close really. It's kinda just a hazy construct in my mind.

I feel like that is where a lot of the miscommunication comes from, people who think others can close there eyes and be transported somewhere else by imagining it. That is unless I actually just have aphantasia.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#83

Post by k__ »

bigyikes wrote: post #46
ehutch79 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretend you're talking about photos and cameras. You mean you can see the image? even though the camera isn't pointed at it now? Like it's really seeing it? Same idea. You're seeing it, but you know it's just a memory of the thing, not a live view. Like pulling up a video or jpg instead of a live feed.

Let’s suppose you have perfect recall. Pull up the image on your phone and look at it. Now close your eyes and imagine the image as accurately as you can. Is it as though you didn’t close your eyes at all? Do you see it the same way as when your eyes are open?

No.

When I'm fully awake, the mental images are more like someone attached a new camera with a field of view that ends at the edges of the object/scene I try to generate.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#84

Post by hvs »

the_af wrote: post #77
hvs wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I remember "facts" about the event. Like, who was there, when it was, what was said. I don't have mental images of an event.

So it's like an analytical description of the event? You don't remember sensations about an experience, like touch, smells, etc?

Basically? It's a "sense" or "vibe". "There was a guy begging on the street" is what I remember. Not the actual words or a picture, just the "vibe" of that sentence. Definitely no touches, sounds, smells, or pictures.

My wife, who has a very visual and auditory memory, to the point that she can basically re-watch movies in her head, is still dumbfounded by this fact.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#85

Post by bena »

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #62
bena wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 to…

I mean, the issue is that we cannot know what is actually going on in someone else's mind. All we can do is describe it to the best of our ability. So there is some likelihood that things like inner monologues and aphantasia are simply different ways of describing similar things.

However, you present an interesting point of view. As someone who remembers being able to visualize but is no longer able to.

And while I feel you on the MRI thing, I don't think you could have known you'd lose the ability to visualize. But I think there would be some value in comparing you against people who both claim to be able to visualize and those who claim to not be able to. You would serve as a sort of marker. Someone who we could be relatively comfortable categorizing as you have distinct memories of being able to visualize and now have a different experience.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#86

Post by abetusk »

vorbits wrote: post #61
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…

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 wi…

Bring a picture of an apple up on your computer screen and look at it for 30 seconds. There is a fidelity to that image that includes the color, texture, stem, shape, reflection, etc.

Now close your eyes and try to picture an apple for 30 seconds. Is the same experience as if having that picture in front of you? As in, can you picture, in your minds eye, an image of an apple as if you were looking at on your computer screen? On a scale from 1 to 5, where 5 is complete parity as if you were looking at it from your computer screen and 1 for no visualization possible, what is your ability to do so?

It sounds like you're a 1, as in you have aphantasia.

I know it sounds crazy but I think there really are people who can visualize that apple.

Note that inability to visualize doesn't mean you can't recognize or differentiate one apple from another. It doesn't mean you can't draw that apple from memory, in perfect detail. It doesn't mean you can't describe or recreate that image of an apple. It mean that you cannot literally have an image in your minds eye of that apple.

Here are some other articles of note:

"Quantifying Aphantasia through drawing: Those without visual imagery show deficits in object but not spatial memory" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7856239/

"I can’t picture things in my mind. I didn’t realize that was unusual" https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2024/feb/26/what-is-aph...

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#87

Post by mnmalst »

altruios wrote: post #64
mnmalst wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

That's interesting, so how can people like that know which is real and which is not? I don't understand it.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#88

Post by AaronAPU »

godshatter wrote: post #50
happytoexplain wrote: post #36

I have no real basis for this, but I always suspected that the majority of differences in ability to picture things is actually just a difference in semantics about terms like "visualizing", "picturing", etc. I don't think anybody is "literally" envisioning things, as in hallucination. On the other end, I don't think anybody is actually unable to "think of" what a thing looks like. But it's really difficult to object…

As a person with aphantasia, I can see actual images when I'm on the edge of sleep, and I can see actual images when I'm dreaming, but I can't get anything like that to show up when I try to "picture" something. Just black with static. It is difficult to describe, but so many people talk about it as if they are seeing something and I never have - I've always assumed it was a figure of speech of some kind to visualize…

I can’t generally “literally see” my mental images. But on a few rare occasions in my life, I did. I don’t know why, and it was brief, but at least I can easily believe now that some people do it all the time.

When it happened to me the few times it was an otherwise very mundane day and it felt very natural. It was overlayed onto whatever else I was looking at and could persist with eyes closed.

Honestly the experience kind of cheapened art for me to an extent since you either have that cheat code or you don’t.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#89

Post by Sharlin »

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…

My visual imagery is also "hazy" and somehow fleeting and unreal, but still very useful. I don't find it that hard to imagine (heh) that for some people it would be more vivid, and for others almost nonexistent – though a total lack of visualization ability is perhaps more difficult to picture (heh^2), similarly to how it's almost impossible to imagine what it is like to be born blind, for example.

It would definitely be interesting if there were more discussion on other imagined sensory modalities, too. For example, as a choir singer I'd guess that, say, keeping a given starting pitch in your head is easier for people who can mentally "hear" it. Myself I can sort of imagine sounds, but keeping a pitch in my head is more about the physically preparing my larynx to produce that pitch.

Re: Some people can't see mental images

#90

Post by abetusk »

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?

I'm not saying that at all. I think I have aphantasia. For me the score is 1 or 2 to picture that apple.

I was shocked to realize that when people said "imagine in your minds eye", they meant it literally. This seems to be a common experience for people with aphantasia [0].

Note that when I'm close to sleep or dreaming, then yes, my minds eye visualization is close to photographic parity. While awake, its almost completely non-existent.

[0] "I can’t picture things in my mind. I didn’t realize that was unusual" https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2024/feb/26/what-is-aph...

Post reply on HN