4 ms·

You can have a conceptual model of how things relate in space. Something like a class diagram or a DB schema. It doesn't need to be visual.

constantcrying 2y ago
This seems totally contradictory to me.
- FeistySkink 2y ago
  How so? A DB schema is not visual: it's something that lives inside a DBMS. Boxes with arrows is a way to represent it. Text is another one.
  - constantcrying 2y ago
    >A DB schema is not visual How is it not visual? >Boxes with arrows is a way to represent it. Text is another one. Boxes with arrows are clearly visual. The text, at least, for me just is a representation of those arrows and boxes.
    - shafyy 2y ago
      > How is it not visual? (not the person you're responding to) It's not an image. It's a concept. I don't know how to explain the difference because I also only know it from the explanations of my partner. For example, she says that if she imagines a house it looks like a schematic drawing of a house (almost like if a child would draw a house), not like a realistic photograph of a house.
      - vonunov 2y ago
        I'm pretty sure everybody (for certain values of "everybody") visualizes things as schemata; being able to imagine only specific, known, real examples instead of representative composites is a feature of autism. But here it sounds more like you're talking about a highly symbolic/abstracted example of a house vs. a highly detailed/concrete example of a house (rather than the autistic "actual house I have actually seen before"). I don't see how any of these wouldn't still be considered visual mental imagery and I'm starting to think that the people saying there's a semantics issue here might have a point.
        adastra22 2y ago
        When I 'visualize' it's not an image at all. It's the concept of what the image would be showing, which the above posters have called a graph or schematic. But that's an analogy, and not to be taken too literally. I don't visualize a schematic. I instead feel the connections and relationships between concepts. It's entirely non-visual.
        vonunov 2y ago
        I see, it sounded like you were saying you were visualizing a schema[1] (not schematic) of a house but thought it didn't qualify as visualization for some reason. Does it feel like this is unsymbolized[2] or taking the form of a different mental imagery? (Mental "imagery" can be "visual imagery", or aural, tactile, kinesthetic...) (Second link is my own re-re-posted comments about the subjective experience of "unsymbolized thought" and doesn't reflect some newer understanding on my end about it -- chiefly, the understanding of unsymbolized thoughts as similar to the aborted motor commands seen in subvocalizing, for example, except aborted much earlier; this explains why it would be difficult to continue doing it if I don't keep it moving along, since each "unsymbolized thought", or thought-granule or what have you, is already the beginning of a process that necessarily leads to some form of mental imagery and corresponding aborted motor command) 1. https://nn.cs.utexas.edu/downloads/papers/miikkulainen.visual-schemas.pdf https://nn.cs.utexas.edu/downloads/papers/miikkulainen.visua... 2. https://www.pastery.net/vvapdr/ https://www.pastery.net/vvapdr/
    - cstrahan 2y ago
      > How is it not visual? Perhaps it is. But then you should be able to answer: where is that visualization on disk? And I don't mean the encoding thereof, I mean the actual 2D picture you could glance at and immediately recognize. Not rendered with some image viewing program, but literally looking at the disk/SSD (perhaps under a microscope, if necessary) -- that should be doable, because you're claiming that schemas are inherently visual, and certainly that schema exists on disk somewhere, which in turn implies that those boxes and arrows should be visible on the storage medium. > Boxes with arrows are clearly visual. You've changed the topic -- no one is saying that boxes and arrows are not clearly visual. Where are those boxes and arrows sketched into an SSD or in memory? Or, would you assert that a database is schema-less until someone draws up a diagram? The boxes and arrows image representation of a schema is not the schema itself. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation
- Izkata 2y ago
  I think this is where I go by default, and I've described it before as a low-resolution wireframe. Only the particular part I'm paying attention to is there but I know what's around it and can shift focus as needed. Almost like rendering a 3D image, but stopping early. I can also go full color with effort but it's generally unnecessary.
- fromMars 2y ago
  There is a lot of evidence that aphants score higher on spatial reasoning tests than those with vivid visual recall and are over represented in fields like math and science. These two skill sets appear to be divergent, i.e., people are either good at visualizing and recalling fine details or they are good at manipulating/reasoning about spatial objects. Personally, I have always excelled at the latter and have a strong sense of direction and have scored well on tests that require one to manipulate/rotate objects in my brain.
dorena 2y ago
this! I think it’s also the reason why I was good at maths, very used to conceptualize stuff

constantcrying 2y ago

This seems totally contradictory to me.

FeistySkink 2y ago
How so? A DB schema is not visual: it's something that lives inside a DBMS. Boxes with arrows is a way to represent it. Text is another one.
- constantcrying 2y ago
  >A DB schema is not visual How is it not visual? >Boxes with arrows is a way to represent it. Text is another one. Boxes with arrows are clearly visual. The text, at least, for me just is a representation of those arrows and boxes.
  - shafyy 2y ago
    > How is it not visual? (not the person you're responding to) It's not an image. It's a concept. I don't know how to explain the difference because I also only know it from the explanations of my partner. For example, she says that if she imagines a house it looks like a schematic drawing of a house (almost like if a child would draw a house), not like a realistic photograph of a house.
    - vonunov 2y ago
      I'm pretty sure everybody (for certain values of "everybody") visualizes things as schemata; being able to imagine only specific, known, real examples instead of representative composites is a feature of autism. But here it sounds more like you're talking about a highly symbolic/abstracted example of a house vs. a highly detailed/concrete example of a house (rather than the autistic "actual house I have actually seen before"). I don't see how any of these wouldn't still be considered visual mental imagery and I'm starting to think that the people saying there's a semantics issue here might have a point.
      - adastra22 2y ago
        When I 'visualize' it's not an image at all. It's the concept of what the image would be showing, which the above posters have called a graph or schematic. But that's an analogy, and not to be taken too literally. I don't visualize a schematic. I instead feel the connections and relationships between concepts. It's entirely non-visual.
        vonunov 2y ago
        I see, it sounded like you were saying you were visualizing a schema[1] (not schematic) of a house but thought it didn't qualify as visualization for some reason. Does it feel like this is unsymbolized[2] or taking the form of a different mental imagery? (Mental "imagery" can be "visual imagery", or aural, tactile, kinesthetic...) (Second link is my own re-re-posted comments about the subjective experience of "unsymbolized thought" and doesn't reflect some newer understanding on my end about it -- chiefly, the understanding of unsymbolized thoughts as similar to the aborted motor commands seen in subvocalizing, for example, except aborted much earlier; this explains why it would be difficult to continue doing it if I don't keep it moving along, since each "unsymbolized thought", or thought-granule or what have you, is already the beginning of a process that necessarily leads to some form of mental imagery and corresponding aborted motor command) 1. https://nn.cs.utexas.edu/downloads/papers/miikkulainen.visual-schemas.pdf https://nn.cs.utexas.edu/downloads/papers/miikkulainen.visua... 2. https://www.pastery.net/vvapdr/ https://www.pastery.net/vvapdr/
  - cstrahan 2y ago
    > How is it not visual? Perhaps it is. But then you should be able to answer: where is that visualization on disk? And I don't mean the encoding thereof, I mean the actual 2D picture you could glance at and immediately recognize. Not rendered with some image viewing program, but literally looking at the disk/SSD (perhaps under a microscope, if necessary) -- that should be doable, because you're claiming that schemas are inherently visual, and certainly that schema exists on disk somewhere, which in turn implies that those boxes and arrows should be visible on the storage medium. > Boxes with arrows are clearly visual. You've changed the topic -- no one is saying that boxes and arrows are not clearly visual. Where are those boxes and arrows sketched into an SSD or in memory? Or, would you assert that a database is schema-less until someone draws up a diagram? The boxes and arrows image representation of a schema is not the schema itself. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation
Izkata 2y ago
I think this is where I go by default, and I've described it before as a low-resolution wireframe. Only the particular part I'm paying attention to is there but I know what's around it and can shift focus as needed. Almost like rendering a 3D image, but stopping early. I can also go full color with effort but it's generally unnecessary.
fromMars 2y ago
There is a lot of evidence that aphants score higher on spatial reasoning tests than those with vivid visual recall and are over represented in fields like math and science. These two skill sets appear to be divergent, i.e., people are either good at visualizing and recalling fine details or they are good at manipulating/reasoning about spatial objects. Personally, I have always excelled at the latter and have a strong sense of direction and have scored well on tests that require one to manipulate/rotate objects in my brain.

dorena 2y ago

this! I think it’s also the reason why I was good at maths, very used to conceptualize stuff