I strongly suspect that you are recalling and processing images, but that it is just never reaching your conscious mind as images. Even people who have had the

I strongly suspect that you are recalling and processing images, but that it is just never reaching your conscious mind as images. Even people who have had the "split brain" surgery due to epilepsy are able to do complex visual tasks; they just cannot articulate what they are doing with words. I can't find the video, but, they interviewed someone with this condition, and asked him to parse a visually ambiguous painting. He couldn't say how he interpreted it, but when given a pencil and paper, he could express it visually. So that would explain when people say that they can only recall a verbal description of something, I think that their brain actually is creating an image of it, but it is just not appearing in their mind's eye. This could also explain why some studies have shown that people with aphantasia are just as competent, if not slightly better, at solving complex visual puzzles. So, perhaps if you cannot imagine what something looks like, you might still be able to draw it.