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As a child, my dad had the "Mega Memory" tapes around the house and I remember listening to them. Very early on in the lessons, the instructor talks about usin
by jacinda 10y ago
As a child, my dad had the "Mega Memory" tapes around the house and I remember listening to them. Very early on in the lessons, the instructor talks about using basic association because we "think in pictures." As an example, he noted that if he said the word elephant, people picture an elephant, not the word "e-l-e-p-h-a-n-t." I must have been eight or nine at the time and remember being terribly confused because I couldn't really picture of an elephant in my head. I suspect I do have aphantasia to a certain degree.
Unlike the author, I do dream visually (in fact, I tend to have very vivid dreams; the most vivid ones are difficult to separate from reality, even if the subject matter is something fantastic like being part of an interstellar military or something). If I'm in a state between waking and sleeping I actually do have much more of a mind's eye, but when I'm fully awake I don't have pictures in my head...but I remember what it's like to visualize things mentally because of my dreams.
I have at least something of a "mind's ear" in that I can hear music in my head (the detail is usually not as rich; it's often just the melody with lyrics). Additionally, I have a very good memory for song lyrics and when I listen to music the concept of tuning out or not being extremely aware of the lyrics is something that friends I have described but that I rarely experience. I can usually only tune out lyrics in music if it's a song that I'm already very familiar with.
One aspect that I find interesting is that although I can't really picture places I still have spatial awareness in my mental concept of them. For example, if I remember one of the houses we lived in as a child I can "place" various objects in and around the house in their correct spatial relationships without picturing the objects themselves. Do other people with aphantasia also have this experience?
- berekuk 10y agoMy experience is closer to yours than to the author of the original post. 1) I have a phonological loop and can easily imagine music. 2) My visuospatial sketchpad (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baddeley%27s_model_of_working_memory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baddeley%27s_model_of_working_...) is almost entirely spatial. I don't know the color of the floor in my kitchen, unless I paid attention to it specifically and verbally in the past. But I can use memory palace successfully. 3) I wonder if for me it's just an undeveloped habit which could be improved: I have dreams with pictures and colors once a few months, and sometimes I see pictures when I'm half asleep, but it's really hard to put myself into that state intentionally.
- jacinda 10y agoInteresting. I hadn't read about that model of working memory before but going through the article it does sound like we have similar experiences. 1) I also have a phonological loop - and would consider this the strongest part of my memory. I have a relatively easy time memorizing large volumes of text and my verbal aptitude on tests has always been extremely high. I also have an aptitude for foreign languages and enjoy studying them as a hobby. 2) I would agree. I could probably tell you the color of the floor of the kitchen where I'm currently living, but any past place would be difficult. I've experimented with a memory palace before so I believe it would work in theory but I haven't practiced enough to know for sure. 3) Sometimes I wonder this as well. I frequently have very vivid dreams and occasionally have flashes of things that I think are mental imagery but they're fuzzy and not something I can really do on demand.