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I’m not doubting your friend, but that kind of mental visualization ability (doing arithmetic on visualized paper) has to be extremely rare. That is savant leve

I’m not doubting your friend, but that kind of mental visualization ability (doing arithmetic on visualized paper) has to be extremely rare. That is savant level capability. I would say that ability depends much more on short term memory capacity than anything else. I think the visualization aspect is incidental.

godDLL 5y ago
A few years back I couldn't visualize a point. Recently I learned to read words backwards in my mind. It's a skill.
bobsmooth 5y ago
I visualize mental math but anything more than 2 digits by 2 digits is hard to keep track of. Short term memory is very much the limiting factor.
aappleby 5y ago
Surely it isn't that rare? I can track about 8 digits total while doing mental mul/div, and I don't think of that as anything special.
- FPGAhacker 5y ago
  So you could multiply or divide two four digit numbers by visualizing them? To me that is pretty incredible!
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    How do you figure? Just the two inputs would take up all 8 digits, but you need to keep track of a bunch of intermediate results too.
    - aappleby 5y ago
      Yeah 4x4 would be a bit much, 3x3 is doable, 3x2 is easy.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- the_only_law 5y ago
  I’m probably just an idiot, but I am absolutely terrible and anything that requires me to retain information in my head for a calculation.
light_hue_1 5y ago
> but that kind of mental visualization ability (doing arithmetic on visualized paper) has to be extremely rare. That is savant level capability No way. I would say most of the math students I've taught at the university level could do it to some extent. It's not all that helpful. The problem is that your visual scratch pad is quite limited. If you're forced to always rely on it you won't get far without having to unlearn bad habits. This happens to people with amazing memories too. I can't name a single colleague at my top 10 university that has an eidetic memory. The people I've met with amazing memories have systematically had a lot of issues because of their memory. It's too easy to rely on remembering things and then you never build good heuristics and don't generalize well.
- robbiep 5y ago
  It is pretty handy in a related concept - rotating stereoisomers in organic chemistry
ok_dad 5y ago
I can definitely see things in great detail in my mind, I don't feel like it's too hard, is it really that uncommon? My wife always loses things, and when she is looking I just virtually walk around my house to figure out where it is. I'm not sure I see every detail, but I see most of the home. Same for if I am talking about where something is for driving, I just virtually drive there in my head and explain the major turns to them as I go. I can also picture math and programming in my head; the former usually as geometric shapes forming to solve a problem and the latter as flow charts. I'm not the smartest person, so I'm pretty sure it's just practice that allows me to do this, as I've always been a sort of loner and had to picture books and worlds in my head to entertain myself.

godDLL 5y ago

A few years back I couldn't visualize a point. Recently I learned to read words backwards in my mind. It's a skill.

bobsmooth 5y ago

I visualize mental math but anything more than 2 digits by 2 digits is hard to keep track of. Short term memory is very much the limiting factor.

aappleby 5y ago

Surely it isn't that rare? I can track about 8 digits total while doing mental mul/div, and I don't think of that as anything special.

FPGAhacker 5y ago
So you could multiply or divide two four digit numbers by visualizing them? To me that is pretty incredible!
- josephcsible 5y ago
  How do you figure? Just the two inputs would take up all 8 digits, but you need to keep track of a bunch of intermediate results too.
  - aappleby 5y ago
    Yeah 4x4 would be a bit much, 3x3 is doable, 3x2 is easy.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
the_only_law 5y ago
I’m probably just an idiot, but I am absolutely terrible and anything that requires me to retain information in my head for a calculation.

light_hue_1 5y ago

> but that kind of mental visualization ability (doing arithmetic on visualized paper) has to be extremely rare. That is savant level capability No way. I would say most of the math students I've taught at the university level could do it to some extent. It's not all that helpful. The problem is that your visual scratch pad is quite limited. If you're forced to always rely on it you won't get far without having to unlearn bad habits. This happens to people with amazing memories too. I can't name a single colleague at my top 10 university that has an eidetic memory. The people I've met with amazing memories have systematically had a lot of issues because of their memory. It's too easy to rely on remembering things and then you never build good heuristics and don't generalize well.

robbiep 5y ago
It is pretty handy in a related concept - rotating stereoisomers in organic chemistry

ok_dad 5y ago

I can definitely see things in great detail in my mind, I don't feel like it's too hard, is it really that uncommon? My wife always loses things, and when she is looking I just virtually walk around my house to figure out where it is. I'm not sure I see every detail, but I see most of the home. Same for if I am talking about where something is for driving, I just virtually drive there in my head and explain the major turns to them as I go. I can also picture math and programming in my head; the former usually as geometric shapes forming to solve a problem and the latter as flow charts. I'm not the smartest person, so I'm pretty sure it's just practice that allows me to do this, as I've always been a sort of loner and had to picture books and worlds in my head to entertain myself.