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> But when people talk about "mental maps," I'm not entirely sure what they're talking about. In the visual theater of my mind I can literally construct a top

> But when people talk about "mental maps," I'm not entirely sure what they're talking about. In the visual theater of my mind I can literally construct a top down view map and place myself in it dynamically. When I want to determine which exit to use, I use this mechanism and then route myself through it. It's something that /seems/ to turn on and off when I need to make the next turn decision, but if I've used it recently, it's easier to recall than it is the first time. For a building, it's typically nailing down the elevator lobby's orientation with respect to the rest of the city around it, then building a smaller mental map from an individual floor that is also referenced to the lobby. If I need to think about how my desk is oriented to larger features in the city, I have to do two orientation and projection steps in my mind. Anyways.. do you think visually or textually?

eru 3y ago
> Anyways.. do you think visually or textually? What about verbally?
- akira2501 3y ago
  I can't speak to that. I guess that might be owing to how visual my thinking is, I perceive verbal thinkers as reading a book in their mind, which I only now realize is a terrible metaphor.
  - mewpmewp2 3y ago
    One maybe a stupid question. If your thinking is visual, wouldn't you have to close your eyes to be able to think? Or how can you still see? Is it like augmented reality? Actually since I think, I think by hearing a continous record of text, when I do that, it does make it hard to listen to people. I have to attune that record exactly to what people are saying and it is something I have had challenges doing my whole life. Then I have to fight, put effort in, to be able to keep it on track. I prefer watching films with same language subtitles for that reason. Then I read the subtitles and doing that my thought track is somehow in sync. But it is impossible to keep the thought track in sync with realtime voice. I could only repeat it out of sync. If people had subtitles, on top of their heads as they were talking I could pay attention much better in social situations.
    - nicoburns 3y ago
      > One maybe a stupid question. If your thinking is visual, wouldn't you have to close your eyes to be able to think? Kinda like multiple monitors on a computer. It's possible to see both at once. I do often do my best sleeping in bed at night with my eyes closed however.
      - mewpmewp2 3y ago
        But with multiple monitors you have to look at one at a time, and if you do that you won't see the others? So if you are focusing on a visual thought shouldn't you be unable to see the real world? Or you are kind of zoomed out far enough that you do, but then you are seeing it side by side with real world? But still then are one of those things more blurry depending on where you focus exactly? It is fascinating to try and understand it. It doesn't feel like I can relate to it at all or see how it is possible.
        mixmastamyk 3y ago
        People have talked about a disorder? where folks can’t picture things in their mind. Believe called aphantasia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia
    - eru 3y ago
      > If your thinking is visual, wouldn't you have to close your eyes to be able to think? When I think verbally, I don't have to use ear plugs to think. Though very noisy environments make it harder. When I think visually, I don't have to close my eyes to think. But visually noisy environments make it harder. I guess that's (part of) why people sometimes stare off into space when deep in thought?
mewpmewp2 3y ago
Data point from me. I also think I have terrible ability to remember places or directions. I feel like it is maybe because I am not paying attention to all the details. I would think I am at the very least bottom 5 percent performer. People say something like "oh we turned from here, I remember this building". I wonder how they are remembering something like that and why I never do. I feel many of my anxious situations in life have been where I was asked to do something where people expected me to know where to go and I just had no idea. I think textually, but not seeing text, rather hearing it as one continous line of thought and maybe some odd less focused lines of thought in parallel. I had a cognitive abilities test done by a psychologist. Visual memory was one of the worst percentually. The test included I think some sort of drawing with lines and recreating it later in the test after doing some other activities inbetween. Strongest area was abstract logical reasoning. Which was top 1 percent. But my main concerns were memory and why I did the test in the first place.
- nicoburns 3y ago
  > oh we turned from here, I remember this building". I wonder how they are remembering something like that and why I never do. My memory is primarily visual such that I can replay a video like experience in my head of a lot of events. This extends to things like spellings which I will recall as a visual representation of the word.
  - mewpmewp2 3y ago
    How would you even have the storage room for a video. Not doubting, but just crazy to think for me. It probably must be some very deeply compressed video that gets reconstructed from objects from the internal structure somehow and then perhaps constructed runtime, meaning it won't be the same everytime.
    - mixmastamyk 3y ago
      Not like a recorded video, more like a video game, drawn on demand with vectors ;-).
teaearlgraycold 3y ago
For me it’s very similar to the 3D maps in games like Doom (the one from 2016) or Deep Rock Galactic.

eru 3y ago

> Anyways.. do you think visually or textually? What about verbally?

akira2501 3y ago
I can't speak to that. I guess that might be owing to how visual my thinking is, I perceive verbal thinkers as reading a book in their mind, which I only now realize is a terrible metaphor.
- mewpmewp2 3y ago
  One maybe a stupid question. If your thinking is visual, wouldn't you have to close your eyes to be able to think? Or how can you still see? Is it like augmented reality? Actually since I think, I think by hearing a continous record of text, when I do that, it does make it hard to listen to people. I have to attune that record exactly to what people are saying and it is something I have had challenges doing my whole life. Then I have to fight, put effort in, to be able to keep it on track. I prefer watching films with same language subtitles for that reason. Then I read the subtitles and doing that my thought track is somehow in sync. But it is impossible to keep the thought track in sync with realtime voice. I could only repeat it out of sync. If people had subtitles, on top of their heads as they were talking I could pay attention much better in social situations.
  - nicoburns 3y ago
    > One maybe a stupid question. If your thinking is visual, wouldn't you have to close your eyes to be able to think? Kinda like multiple monitors on a computer. It's possible to see both at once. I do often do my best sleeping in bed at night with my eyes closed however.
    - mewpmewp2 3y ago
      But with multiple monitors you have to look at one at a time, and if you do that you won't see the others? So if you are focusing on a visual thought shouldn't you be unable to see the real world? Or you are kind of zoomed out far enough that you do, but then you are seeing it side by side with real world? But still then are one of those things more blurry depending on where you focus exactly? It is fascinating to try and understand it. It doesn't feel like I can relate to it at all or see how it is possible.
      - mixmastamyk 3y ago
        People have talked about a disorder? where folks can’t picture things in their mind. Believe called aphantasia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia
  - eru 3y ago
    > If your thinking is visual, wouldn't you have to close your eyes to be able to think? When I think verbally, I don't have to use ear plugs to think. Though very noisy environments make it harder. When I think visually, I don't have to close my eyes to think. But visually noisy environments make it harder. I guess that's (part of) why people sometimes stare off into space when deep in thought?

mewpmewp2 3y ago

Data point from me. I also think I have terrible ability to remember places or directions. I feel like it is maybe because I am not paying attention to all the details. I would think I am at the very least bottom 5 percent performer. People say something like "oh we turned from here, I remember this building". I wonder how they are remembering something like that and why I never do. I feel many of my anxious situations in life have been where I was asked to do something where people expected me to know where to go and I just had no idea. I think textually, but not seeing text, rather hearing it as one continous line of thought and maybe some odd less focused lines of thought in parallel. I had a cognitive abilities test done by a psychologist. Visual memory was one of the worst percentually. The test included I think some sort of drawing with lines and recreating it later in the test after doing some other activities inbetween. Strongest area was abstract logical reasoning. Which was top 1 percent. But my main concerns were memory and why I did the test in the first place.

nicoburns 3y ago
> oh we turned from here, I remember this building". I wonder how they are remembering something like that and why I never do. My memory is primarily visual such that I can replay a video like experience in my head of a lot of events. This extends to things like spellings which I will recall as a visual representation of the word.
- mewpmewp2 3y ago
  How would you even have the storage room for a video. Not doubting, but just crazy to think for me. It probably must be some very deeply compressed video that gets reconstructed from objects from the internal structure somehow and then perhaps constructed runtime, meaning it won't be the same everytime.
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    Not like a recorded video, more like a video game, drawn on demand with vectors ;-).

teaearlgraycold 3y ago

For me it’s very similar to the 3D maps in games like Doom (the one from 2016) or Deep Rock Galactic.