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"I have what is called “aphantasia,” the absence of voluntary imagination of the senses. I know what a top hat is. I can describe its main characteristics. I ca

"I have what is called “aphantasia,” the absence of voluntary imagination of the senses. I know what a top hat is. I can describe its main characteristics. I can even draw an above-average impression of one on a piece of paper for you. But I can’t visualize it mentally. What’s wrong with me?" How can you draw a thing without visualizing it? Do the coordinates of the vertices appear in your head or instructions about how to move your hand? Or is it like you wake up and suddenly you have a finished painting in front of you with no idea how it got there?

throw1234651234 3y ago
This is an absolutely correct question to ask. It's also a good question to ask people who claim they can visualize things well, but can't draw. I think people vastly, vastly overstate how well they can actually visualize something in their mind. Most people can't visualize a circle of a solid color and change the color in their mind, let alone visualize a face or anything significant.
- htss2013 3y ago
  Humans seem optimized for detailed recognition of visuals, not reproduction of them. Makes evolutionary sense because you can easily see the utility of detailed recognition, but what justifies the additional burden of detailed reproduction? People who can draw detailed reproductions are either oddballs with photographic memory, or they've perfected the skill of adjusting their drawings as they develop gradient descent style using detailed recognition as the judge of where to stop.
- circuit10 3y ago
  I can definitely visualise those things in a way that sort of feels like seeing it but when I do that my brain really works with abstract concepts where if you focus on something in particular you make up the finer detail on the fly
  - Nevermark 3y ago
    Yes, I can visualize almost anything, but there is a huge fovea aspect where my focus has to zoom around to check/see all the details. But if the details are unconstrained conceptually, or not tied to a remembered object, then details won’t be consistent as I move around. The memory palace thing works for me too, if I am not constantly moving things around.
    - throw1234651234 3y ago
      Memory palace works just fine without CLEAR visualization. CLEAR visualization is when you can do what was claimed of Tesla - move around complex systems and actually see them to scale / detail. There is no way in hell most people can take a transmission and put it together in their head and re-arrange it. Working memory doesn't allow for that, unless it's some entirely different system of processing in the brain.
- InSteady 3y ago
  I can draw sort of ok, but only because I've practiced a bit. I can visualize quite well, I assume because of some innate ability + I practiced extensively as a child for fun. It is definitely a skill that requires focused training, at least in my experience, so it makes some sense that the average person wouldn't spend too much time going out of their way to practice. If I get out of the habit for whatever reason, I'll slowly lose proficiency at quickly and easily picturing objects in near life-like detail, manipulating them skillfully, rendering complex scenes, holding images with eyes open or under distraction / activity, etc. Objects will start off grainy/foggy by default and only clarify if I really can focus. Scenes and large complex objects will be much harder to hold together as a whole with distinct parts/areas. Changing an object results in more fog or losing the image temporarily. That kind of thing.
aphantasiathr 3y ago
[dead]
drbawb 3y ago
>How can you draw a thing without visualizing it? Speaking personally: my hand just moves. A top hat is roughly an elliptical base with a smaller cylinder affixed to it on-center, maybe a colored band or a bow wrapped around the bottom. The band is another cylinder w/ less height circumscribed into the larger one. The bow is maybe two triangles connected w/ a circle. Add some squigglies and shading to make the bow look like fabric. All this has to be skewed by perspective, which is going to be some lines I lay down w/ a straight edge. I like pencil, because I make lots of mistakes. I hated art-class as a kid because markers, crayons, colored pencils, etc. were torture to me, I had no idea how someone could commit to permanence w/ the first stroke. (Obviously had no idea what aphantasia was, then, but I do remember thinking pretty early on how _weird_ guided meditation sessions were. The backs of my eyelids are pretty uninteresting.) >Do the coordinates of the vertices appear in your head or instructions about how to move your hand? I don't see anything except what is on the paper. I probably use more guidelines than most, and my (admittedly amateurish) art looks very "sketch-y" _because it is._ I use lots of thin strokes or draw guidelines and erase ones that don't seem right. I'm very bad at "rendering" final scenes, I essentially have to just trace my own work very deliberately. (Though I'm slowly learning to lean on tracing via layers in digital tools to help with that.) The facts of the "scene" are just present in my mind. My muscle memory acts on them. I am usually repulsed by what's on the paper and refine it. It's maybe akin to an internal monologue; closest thing I can think of is if someone was reading me a recipe over the phone: but instead of ingredients it was simple shapes "draw this, then that on top of it, but erase this line here at the bottom." Though it's not really a voice, exactly, unless I choose to vocalize or sub-vocalize it. I don't really know how to describe it, I don't "see" the facts, or "hear" the facts, they're just _there._ If you ask me about my car, it's a blue Subaru. I didn't envision their emblem, or see the color blue, or the outline of the car, or anything like that. I just know it's a Subaru, and it's regal blue pearl - 35J. (Ironically I'm fucking terrible at trivia games.) Also - if you ask me to draw with my eyes closed - you're probably going to get a bunch of disjoint strokes. It took a long time for me to figure out how to effectively use a digital tablet. (I'm still not sure I love it, but digital authoring fills too many other gaps for me to give up on it.)
- masswerk 3y ago
  I have the condition, as well (that is, I may have a short visual flash or broad impression, but I can't sustain this), still, part of my work is working as a designer and I'm considered proficient at drawing. It really comes down to classic poetics and relying on / trusting your gestures, while you are drawing. The amazing thing is that you can produce a stroke, you couldn't have thought of in a controlled way, and you're kind of surprising yourself. (I believed for a long time, it would be like this for everybody.) BTW, this may be related or not, but I have learned to detest gesture based UIs in apps, and, since this has become the prevalent form of control, I've removed about all apps from my phone.
perrygeo 3y ago
> How can you draw a thing without visualizing it? This is a great question. I have an inability to draw things from memory (despite being able to recognize them immediately and form strong narrative memories of them). This realization is what lead to me to think I have aphantasia. A few years ago, I decided to draw a face everyday from memory (of someone I knew well visually) to see if I could train myself to get better. After 6 months of daily practice, my faces still looked like cartoons. My technique got better from rote memorization, but importantly I never got to the point where I could recognize my subject from my own drawing. They all just looked like random people poorly drawn. I can recognize the mistakes as soon as they're on paper but during the initial creation I feel like I'm guessing where the lines go based on some verbal/narrative structure ("I know she has long hair, how about this..."), then saying "hmm that's not right". I have no reference image in my mind to work off of. But I can immediately pattern match against my drawing to see how far off I am, which means the visual information is encoded in my brain somewhere. Still no clue on how to voluntarily access that memory - it's as if my visual systems only fire when photons hit my eyeballs. Which only helps after I've made my shitty drawing, not while I'm drawing.
frabcus 3y ago
It's hard! There are some professional artists who are aphantasic, e.g. this YouTube video talks about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewsGmhAjjjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewsGmhAjjjI IIRC, the artist does lots of sketches, and looks at them to see what looks right. And also uses computer models to get angles of what she's drawing which she struggles with otherwise.

throw1234651234 3y ago

This is an absolutely correct question to ask. It's also a good question to ask people who claim they can visualize things well, but can't draw. I think people vastly, vastly overstate how well they can actually visualize something in their mind. Most people can't visualize a circle of a solid color and change the color in their mind, let alone visualize a face or anything significant.

htss2013 3y ago
Humans seem optimized for detailed recognition of visuals, not reproduction of them. Makes evolutionary sense because you can easily see the utility of detailed recognition, but what justifies the additional burden of detailed reproduction? People who can draw detailed reproductions are either oddballs with photographic memory, or they've perfected the skill of adjusting their drawings as they develop gradient descent style using detailed recognition as the judge of where to stop.
circuit10 3y ago
I can definitely visualise those things in a way that sort of feels like seeing it but when I do that my brain really works with abstract concepts where if you focus on something in particular you make up the finer detail on the fly
- Nevermark 3y ago
  Yes, I can visualize almost anything, but there is a huge fovea aspect where my focus has to zoom around to check/see all the details. But if the details are unconstrained conceptually, or not tied to a remembered object, then details won’t be consistent as I move around. The memory palace thing works for me too, if I am not constantly moving things around.
  - throw1234651234 3y ago
    Memory palace works just fine without CLEAR visualization. CLEAR visualization is when you can do what was claimed of Tesla - move around complex systems and actually see them to scale / detail. There is no way in hell most people can take a transmission and put it together in their head and re-arrange it. Working memory doesn't allow for that, unless it's some entirely different system of processing in the brain.
InSteady 3y ago
I can draw sort of ok, but only because I've practiced a bit. I can visualize quite well, I assume because of some innate ability + I practiced extensively as a child for fun. It is definitely a skill that requires focused training, at least in my experience, so it makes some sense that the average person wouldn't spend too much time going out of their way to practice. If I get out of the habit for whatever reason, I'll slowly lose proficiency at quickly and easily picturing objects in near life-like detail, manipulating them skillfully, rendering complex scenes, holding images with eyes open or under distraction / activity, etc. Objects will start off grainy/foggy by default and only clarify if I really can focus. Scenes and large complex objects will be much harder to hold together as a whole with distinct parts/areas. Changing an object results in more fog or losing the image temporarily. That kind of thing.

aphantasiathr 3y ago

[dead]

drbawb 3y ago

>How can you draw a thing without visualizing it? Speaking personally: my hand just moves. A top hat is roughly an elliptical base with a smaller cylinder affixed to it on-center, maybe a colored band or a bow wrapped around the bottom. The band is another cylinder w/ less height circumscribed into the larger one. The bow is maybe two triangles connected w/ a circle. Add some squigglies and shading to make the bow look like fabric. All this has to be skewed by perspective, which is going to be some lines I lay down w/ a straight edge. I like pencil, because I make lots of mistakes. I hated art-class as a kid because markers, crayons, colored pencils, etc. were torture to me, I had no idea how someone could commit to permanence w/ the first stroke. (Obviously had no idea what aphantasia was, then, but I do remember thinking pretty early on how _weird_ guided meditation sessions were. The backs of my eyelids are pretty uninteresting.) >Do the coordinates of the vertices appear in your head or instructions about how to move your hand? I don't see anything except what is on the paper. I probably use more guidelines than most, and my (admittedly amateurish) art looks very "sketch-y" _because it is._ I use lots of thin strokes or draw guidelines and erase ones that don't seem right. I'm very bad at "rendering" final scenes, I essentially have to just trace my own work very deliberately. (Though I'm slowly learning to lean on tracing via layers in digital tools to help with that.) The facts of the "scene" are just present in my mind. My muscle memory acts on them. I am usually repulsed by what's on the paper and refine it. It's maybe akin to an internal monologue; closest thing I can think of is if someone was reading me a recipe over the phone: but instead of ingredients it was simple shapes "draw this, then that on top of it, but erase this line here at the bottom." Though it's not really a voice, exactly, unless I choose to vocalize or sub-vocalize it. I don't really know how to describe it, I don't "see" the facts, or "hear" the facts, they're just _there._ If you ask me about my car, it's a blue Subaru. I didn't envision their emblem, or see the color blue, or the outline of the car, or anything like that. I just know it's a Subaru, and it's regal blue pearl - 35J. (Ironically I'm fucking terrible at trivia games.) Also - if you ask me to draw with my eyes closed - you're probably going to get a bunch of disjoint strokes. It took a long time for me to figure out how to effectively use a digital tablet. (I'm still not sure I love it, but digital authoring fills too many other gaps for me to give up on it.)

masswerk 3y ago
I have the condition, as well (that is, I may have a short visual flash or broad impression, but I can't sustain this), still, part of my work is working as a designer and I'm considered proficient at drawing. It really comes down to classic poetics and relying on / trusting your gestures, while you are drawing. The amazing thing is that you can produce a stroke, you couldn't have thought of in a controlled way, and you're kind of surprising yourself. (I believed for a long time, it would be like this for everybody.) BTW, this may be related or not, but I have learned to detest gesture based UIs in apps, and, since this has become the prevalent form of control, I've removed about all apps from my phone.

perrygeo 3y ago

> How can you draw a thing without visualizing it? This is a great question. I have an inability to draw things from memory (despite being able to recognize them immediately and form strong narrative memories of them). This realization is what lead to me to think I have aphantasia. A few years ago, I decided to draw a face everyday from memory (of someone I knew well visually) to see if I could train myself to get better. After 6 months of daily practice, my faces still looked like cartoons. My technique got better from rote memorization, but importantly I never got to the point where I could recognize my subject from my own drawing. They all just looked like random people poorly drawn. I can recognize the mistakes as soon as they're on paper but during the initial creation I feel like I'm guessing where the lines go based on some verbal/narrative structure ("I know she has long hair, how about this..."), then saying "hmm that's not right". I have no reference image in my mind to work off of. But I can immediately pattern match against my drawing to see how far off I am, which means the visual information is encoded in my brain somewhere. Still no clue on how to voluntarily access that memory - it's as if my visual systems only fire when photons hit my eyeballs. Which only helps after I've made my shitty drawing, not while I'm drawing.

frabcus 3y ago

It's hard! There are some professional artists who are aphantasic, e.g. this YouTube video talks about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewsGmhAjjjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewsGmhAjjjI IIRC, the artist does lots of sketches, and looks at them to see what looks right. And also uses computer models to get angles of what she's drawing which she struggles with otherwise.