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Interesting that some great animators also have aphantasia. I always assumed that my aphantasia and complete inability to draw anything at better than a 5 year

Interesting that some great animators also have aphantasia. I always assumed that my aphantasia and complete inability to draw anything at better than a 5 year old level were related, but it seems some have developed an iterative process that works around it. That's pretty encouraging.

bitexploder 8y ago
I can visualize well and can’t draw either.
- OneWordSoln 8y ago
  There are methods that claim to guarantee the student will learn to draw. I believe they start with simple objects (boxes, spheres, cones, etc.) and then begin drawing them shaded with different light sources and then progress from there. Beyond the people with extraordinary natural ability, perhaps the rest of us just need to be taught what others can easily intuit?
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    You're probably right. I work with adults doing art work quite a lot. They are often upset that they can't just do it, they've not tried before, or last tried decades ago, but some how expect to just rock up and be great at creating something "artistic" without doing any practice or learning towards it. I'm one of the "omg I might be aphantasic" set here today, but I've never really tried picturing things in that way I don't think, so perhaps I can but just haven't learnt to.
theoh 8y ago
I'd say it's a feedback process, not an iterative one. "Psychologists now recognize three basic types of visual thinkers. To determine what kind of visual thinker you are try imagining a triangle. Do whatever it takes to image that shape in your mind, How did you do it? Some people cannot "see" a triangle in their minds until they draw it on a piece of paper or trace its outline on a table with the and of their finger. Some people need to close their eyes, apparently because seeing interferes with their visual imagination. When their eyes are closed, however, they can "project" the triangle on the inside of their eyelids. Did your eyeballs move as you drew the triangle? Some rare individuals can bring up the image of the triangle with their eyes open, superimposing the triangle on whatever they are looking at. A subset of this latter group can make the triangle change size, color, and perspective; they can make it twirl, jump, and pass through other figures. Steinmetz and Tesla clearly fell into this last category." Elmer Sperry was notoriously good at mental visualization, to the point that he could supposedly just draw the projected outline of his mental images onto paper. A lot of figurative art in previous centuries was also based on drawing bodies from memory. I think you can infer that some painters could really conjure an image (the configuration of a body) in their mind before drawing it, just like Sperry. But the feedback loop approach is equally valid!
- friday99 8y ago
  Wait, I can't believe that I am a "rare individual" who can visually imagine things. Is visual imagination really not a wide spread ability among the population at large? I would think that it is the opposite. That aphantasia would be rare.
  - danaliv 8y ago
    I found that surprising too. I picture things in a space that's not even here. Where does that fit in? Here's the book that the quote is apparently from: https://books.google.com/books?id=dZyPAAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA52&ots=xXVel8t7kg&dq=%22Psychologists%20now%20recognize%20three%20basic%20types%20of%20visual%20thinkers%22&pg=PA52#v=onepage&q=%22Psychologists%20now%20recognize%20three%20basic%20types%20of%20visual%20thinkers%22&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=dZyPAAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA52&ots=...
    - scott_s 8y ago
      I'm like you, which I had assumed is the norm: I can visualize things, but that "visualization space" is completely separate from my normal vision. When I'm imaging an image (or, more often, a short "clip" of something) I can't also focus my attention on what's in front of me at the same time.
      - bigtex88 8y ago
        You put it into words better than I could. That's the exact same for me.
    - theoh 8y ago
      Yes, that's the source, sorry. Math, CS, physics and engineering tend to attract people with visual/spatial aptitude. This may be because sighted people first encounter the subject matter of those disciplines through their visual perception. Whatever the explanation is, HN readers are likely to be an atypical population. My interpretation of the "superimposed" comment is that we are not talking about images appearing as if literally overlaid on what we are seeing. What people experience is that an object that they are visualizing seems to be spatially located in the same place as their visual field—hence Elmer Sperry's comment that he could just "draw around it". Would you agree that your visual imagination and your visual field occupy the same space "in front of" your head? If it's any help, what I'm trying to say about the relationship between real and imaginary is close to the mathematical idea of a covering space: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covering_space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covering_space
jnbiche 8y ago
I have aphantasia but can draw fairly well, as long as I'm looking at what I'm trying to draw. But I can't draw anything from memory (because I have virtually no visual memory, it's very, very, very vague and fuzzy).

bitexploder 8y ago

I can visualize well and can’t draw either.

OneWordSoln 8y ago
There are methods that claim to guarantee the student will learn to draw. I believe they start with simple objects (boxes, spheres, cones, etc.) and then begin drawing them shaded with different light sources and then progress from there. Beyond the people with extraordinary natural ability, perhaps the rest of us just need to be taught what others can easily intuit?
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  You're probably right. I work with adults doing art work quite a lot. They are often upset that they can't just do it, they've not tried before, or last tried decades ago, but some how expect to just rock up and be great at creating something "artistic" without doing any practice or learning towards it. I'm one of the "omg I might be aphantasic" set here today, but I've never really tried picturing things in that way I don't think, so perhaps I can but just haven't learnt to.

theoh 8y ago

I'd say it's a feedback process, not an iterative one. "Psychologists now recognize three basic types of visual thinkers. To determine what kind of visual thinker you are try imagining a triangle. Do whatever it takes to image that shape in your mind, How did you do it? Some people cannot "see" a triangle in their minds until they draw it on a piece of paper or trace its outline on a table with the and of their finger. Some people need to close their eyes, apparently because seeing interferes with their visual imagination. When their eyes are closed, however, they can "project" the triangle on the inside of their eyelids. Did your eyeballs move as you drew the triangle? Some rare individuals can bring up the image of the triangle with their eyes open, superimposing the triangle on whatever they are looking at. A subset of this latter group can make the triangle change size, color, and perspective; they can make it twirl, jump, and pass through other figures. Steinmetz and Tesla clearly fell into this last category." Elmer Sperry was notoriously good at mental visualization, to the point that he could supposedly just draw the projected outline of his mental images onto paper. A lot of figurative art in previous centuries was also based on drawing bodies from memory. I think you can infer that some painters could really conjure an image (the configuration of a body) in their mind before drawing it, just like Sperry. But the feedback loop approach is equally valid!

friday99 8y ago
Wait, I can't believe that I am a "rare individual" who can visually imagine things. Is visual imagination really not a wide spread ability among the population at large? I would think that it is the opposite. That aphantasia would be rare.
- danaliv 8y ago
  I found that surprising too. I picture things in a space that's not even here. Where does that fit in? Here's the book that the quote is apparently from: https://books.google.com/books?id=dZyPAAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA52&ots=xXVel8t7kg&dq=%22Psychologists%20now%20recognize%20three%20basic%20types%20of%20visual%20thinkers%22&pg=PA52#v=onepage&q=%22Psychologists%20now%20recognize%20three%20basic%20types%20of%20visual%20thinkers%22&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=dZyPAAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA52&ots=...
  - scott_s 8y ago
    I'm like you, which I had assumed is the norm: I can visualize things, but that "visualization space" is completely separate from my normal vision. When I'm imaging an image (or, more often, a short "clip" of something) I can't also focus my attention on what's in front of me at the same time.
    - bigtex88 8y ago
      You put it into words better than I could. That's the exact same for me.
  - theoh 8y ago
    Yes, that's the source, sorry. Math, CS, physics and engineering tend to attract people with visual/spatial aptitude. This may be because sighted people first encounter the subject matter of those disciplines through their visual perception. Whatever the explanation is, HN readers are likely to be an atypical population. My interpretation of the "superimposed" comment is that we are not talking about images appearing as if literally overlaid on what we are seeing. What people experience is that an object that they are visualizing seems to be spatially located in the same place as their visual field—hence Elmer Sperry's comment that he could just "draw around it". Would you agree that your visual imagination and your visual field occupy the same space "in front of" your head? If it's any help, what I'm trying to say about the relationship between real and imaginary is close to the mathematical idea of a covering space: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covering_space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covering_space

jnbiche 8y ago

I have aphantasia but can draw fairly well, as long as I'm looking at what I'm trying to draw. But I can't draw anything from memory (because I have virtually no visual memory, it's very, very, very vague and fuzzy).