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What if i ask you to visualize the road from your residence to the first stop you usually make? Kinda like using google street, but in your mind...Do you visual

What if i ask you to visualize the road from your residence to the first stop you usually make? Kinda like using google street, but in your mind...Do you visualize nothing of the streets, the buildings, the crossroads, trees and the like? Do you orient yourself just by "instructions"? Thanks

racingmars 3y ago
Just by instructions is probably how I'd describe it, yes. No visualization of the streets, other houses, etc. Since you asked specifically about my residence to the first stop, which is obviously the portion of driving I perform more than anything else, I would say there's something almost... "Pavlovian" about it, in that the route and actions to get from my house to the first intersection are "burned in" to my brain, but not at all in a way I'd describe as being able to "visualize" it versus "describe it verbally," which is what I have to do in my mind if asked about it. Whether it's significant or not (related to aphantasia), I have a horrible sense of direction, get lost while driving incredibly easily, and am entirely reliant on step-by-step directions to get somewhere (now that GPS in the car is a thing it's not too terrifying to try to drive somewhere I've never driven before, but I've been driving since before GPS was a thing available in cars and getting to new places was not fun back then!)
spiralx 3y ago
I can recall visual "snapshots" of my road and places I know, but I can't hold them in mind or do anything with them, and as far as I can tell those flickers of visual memory are in part reconstructed from facts about those places, general knowledge and other snippets of visual memory. I very rarely don't know where I am or how to get somewhere, but that's based on knowing the connections between places as a network, not visualising a journey.
ItsMonkk 3y ago
It might help as someone who believes they have aphantasia that the steps that I do in my head to list out the steps to go somewhere is identical to the steps I would list out to tell someone how to code something up. If you were to ask me for landmarks like stores that I would pass I would be able to do so, but I wouldn't be thinking of what they look like while listing them out just as I wouldn't be thinking of text while coding. It's less instructions and more a full understanding of the structure at play.

racingmars 3y ago

Just by instructions is probably how I'd describe it, yes. No visualization of the streets, other houses, etc. Since you asked specifically about my residence to the first stop, which is obviously the portion of driving I perform more than anything else, I would say there's something almost... "Pavlovian" about it, in that the route and actions to get from my house to the first intersection are "burned in" to my brain, but not at all in a way I'd describe as being able to "visualize" it versus "describe it verbally," which is what I have to do in my mind if asked about it. Whether it's significant or not (related to aphantasia), I have a horrible sense of direction, get lost while driving incredibly easily, and am entirely reliant on step-by-step directions to get somewhere (now that GPS in the car is a thing it's not too terrifying to try to drive somewhere I've never driven before, but I've been driving since before GPS was a thing available in cars and getting to new places was not fun back then!)

spiralx 3y ago

I can recall visual "snapshots" of my road and places I know, but I can't hold them in mind or do anything with them, and as far as I can tell those flickers of visual memory are in part reconstructed from facts about those places, general knowledge and other snippets of visual memory. I very rarely don't know where I am or how to get somewhere, but that's based on knowing the connections between places as a network, not visualising a journey.

ItsMonkk 3y ago

It might help as someone who believes they have aphantasia that the steps that I do in my head to list out the steps to go somewhere is identical to the steps I would list out to tell someone how to code something up. If you were to ask me for landmarks like stores that I would pass I would be able to do so, but I wouldn't be thinking of what they look like while listing them out just as I wouldn't be thinking of text while coding. It's less instructions and more a full understanding of the structure at play.