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Yes, some, probably most people, "see" sheep. After reading Blake Ross' discussion of this I've been wondering how to explain it to the aphantasic. It's a littl
by neilk 10y ago
Yes, some, probably most people, "see" sheep. After reading Blake Ross' discussion of this I've been wondering how to explain it to the aphantasic. It's a little bit like having a second monitor except it doesn't occupy a part of your visual field. For most people, except da Vinci, it's fainter and less detailed than a real sense impression. Like I can be sitting in a coffeeshop and think of a sunset. The first sunset image I get is almost involuntary. For me it will be cliché, like a stock photo, but I can alter it, or add detail. (Other people may get fantasy landscapes or particular sunset memories).
I can tell you what the colors are like, but it doesn't replace my current visual image. If I focus strongly on the sunset, I may miss things happening in reality, but reality is never fully replaced.
That said, don't take an internet social science quiz too seriously or think you're deficient. People are different.
Blake Ross noted how this seems to be related to how he just doesn't remember a lot of sensory details that other people find important. So perhaps there is some general purpose sense-memory reconstruction and recombination system. But the nature of what you get might depend on what was available. Perhaps for you, remembering a place would be about reconstructing the layout of it. For others it might be visual details, for still others important events or people they shared the space with.
- dempseye 10y agoThere is a language problem here where it is impossible to be sure that when people describe subjective experiences in the same words they are actually having the same qualitative experience. I don't take it too seriously. It's just a jumping off point for a conversation about an interesting perceptual quirk.
- Terretta 10y agoHe says second monitor. My wife just said she sees as though her glasses are off at first. Very visual words from neilk and her both. Unlike glasses or monitor, my "collections of attributes" when asked to actively generate a sense of things ("Picture X") seems more non-visual attributes. Picture a chair: wood, cool to touch, weighs this much in the hand, makes a scraping noise when slid, fairly clean design with straight high back, no arms but indents for buttocks, sturdy, can be stood on to reach things. I just don't see an imaginary visual of one. // I can mentally/visually flip through an endless card deck of them, like nielk's Google Image Search example. I don't feel like I can visually put an imaginary one in an imaginary room in my mind.
- neilk 10y agoThere are some ways to test it though. For the past 15 minutes I've been taking "photographs" of people in this coffeeshop in my mind, closing my eyes, and trying to read details from that photograph. I take in a lot of detail but part of it is reconstructed. Like I remembered the guy had a green trilby hat, and my brain did a Google Image Search for "green trilby" and pasted it on the guy. When I opened my eyes, I saw it was actually a green plaid trilby. But in my mind's eye the image was realistic, even though I obviously hadn't truly seen it.
- Natanael_L 10y agoFor me it is usually either a spatially disconnected weak image not anchored anywhere, or when I try to picture things within my field of vision it is like my imagination is being shown as a reflection in glass, like when you look out through a window at the real world and see your room faintly in the reflection, where I see my imagination like that reflection. The strength of it varies with my focus and general mental state (it is easier when I'm relaxed).
- bjz_ 10y agoGreat description, and makes me feel less handicapped for not having a very vivid mind's eye. I wounder though whether somebody with aphantasia could really understand that description. After all, they would have to actually visualise a reflection to get to grips with it.
- Natanael_L 10y agoFor me it is usually either a spatially disconnected weak image not anchored anywhere, or when I try to picture things within my field of vision it is like my imagination is being shown as a reflection in glass, like when you look out through a window at the real world and see your room faintly in the reflection, where I see my imagination like that reflection. The strength of it varies with my focus and general mental state (it is easier when I'm relaxed).