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Just want to mention here that people exist wich can’t recall a memory trough mental images. It’s called aphantasia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia h

Just want to mention here that people exist wich can’t recall a memory trough mental images. It’s called aphantasia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia

wongarsu 6y ago
I can't really relate to the article's description of episodic memory. I'm also aphantastic. I wonder if there is a correlation or if it's just coincidence. These things are surprisingly little studied, for example aphantasia has only really seen scientific interest in the last ten years. We all seem to assume that everyone's experience is the same as ours, only slowly discovering how untrue that really is. Even something "obvious" like colour blindness in only known for about 250 years.
- scollet 6y ago
  This has been particularly interesting to me because I can usually only relate to system design in software visually. It works wonders for me personally to see code blocks as literal blocks that do X and connect to other blocks via graph edges. Then I pseudocode what I want and replace. Whiteboarding is a bit difficult if I can't visualize transformations or stores of data in some way, or if I can't see a theoretical big picture for a particular function.
- Spare_account 6y ago
  Not long after finding out about Aphantasia I found out about Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM) which I felt described my experience of life very well. SDAM isn't a recognised 'condition' as such, but it has a subreddit with some active users to compare your experiences with which you may find useful. https://old.reddit.com/r/SDAM/ https://old.reddit.com/r/SDAM/
  - scruple 6y ago
    Thank you for pointing this out. I wasn't aware of SDAM and it ticks a few boxes for me. On a related note... If you suspect that you have one of these conditions, is there someone you can talk to for confirmation? Are there people who specialize in... bad brain RAM?
  - wongarsu 6y ago
    Wow, looks like I have to add SDAM to the list of ways I'm different, on top of Aphantasia, not having episodic memory and not being able to vividly recall sounds or smells. At least I don't seem to have Prosopagnosia (A serious downgrade of your facial recognition). That list is pretty long, I'm not sure how to feel about that. (Probably because I generally seem to have less extreme emotional reactions) A study from May 2020 [1] seems to show a strong correlation between these symptoms, suggesting that the underlying cause may be the same. 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7308278/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7308278/

wongarsu 6y ago

I can't really relate to the article's description of episodic memory. I'm also aphantastic. I wonder if there is a correlation or if it's just coincidence. These things are surprisingly little studied, for example aphantasia has only really seen scientific interest in the last ten years. We all seem to assume that everyone's experience is the same as ours, only slowly discovering how untrue that really is. Even something "obvious" like colour blindness in only known for about 250 years.

scollet 6y ago
This has been particularly interesting to me because I can usually only relate to system design in software visually. It works wonders for me personally to see code blocks as literal blocks that do X and connect to other blocks via graph edges. Then I pseudocode what I want and replace. Whiteboarding is a bit difficult if I can't visualize transformations or stores of data in some way, or if I can't see a theoretical big picture for a particular function.
Spare_account 6y ago
Not long after finding out about Aphantasia I found out about Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM) which I felt described my experience of life very well. SDAM isn't a recognised 'condition' as such, but it has a subreddit with some active users to compare your experiences with which you may find useful. https://old.reddit.com/r/SDAM/ https://old.reddit.com/r/SDAM/
- scruple 6y ago
  Thank you for pointing this out. I wasn't aware of SDAM and it ticks a few boxes for me. On a related note... If you suspect that you have one of these conditions, is there someone you can talk to for confirmation? Are there people who specialize in... bad brain RAM?
- wongarsu 6y ago
  Wow, looks like I have to add SDAM to the list of ways I'm different, on top of Aphantasia, not having episodic memory and not being able to vividly recall sounds or smells. At least I don't seem to have Prosopagnosia (A serious downgrade of your facial recognition). That list is pretty long, I'm not sure how to feel about that. (Probably because I generally seem to have less extreme emotional reactions) A study from May 2020 [1] seems to show a strong correlation between these symptoms, suggesting that the underlying cause may be the same. 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7308278/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7308278/