4 ms·

For the test to be meaningful, it should still produce accurate results when the subject is pretending to have the condition (the SAT wouldn’t be helpful if you

For the test to be meaningful, it should still produce accurate results when the subject is pretending to have the condition (the SAT wouldn’t be helpful if you could ace it by acting as if you know the all answers!) Consider a turing test of sorts: I want to convince you I am phantastic, you are tasked with determining whether I am faking it. Could such a test be realized? Consider, for example, the “draw a bicycle” phenomenon. Many alleged phantists are wholly unable to correctly render a bicycle onto paper, and furthermore they are often unable to self-evaluate that their renders are bogus. Many aphants on the other hand have no issue depicting a well formed bicycle onto a paper, and furthermore would be able to identify faulty ones. Of course this test does not have perfect recall/accuracy, it’s just an example of how the results can be counterintuitive.

Terretta 2y ago
> Many aphants on the other hand have no issue depicting a well formed bicycle onto a paper, and furthermore would be able to identify faulty ones. As one, I don't draw, I construct. A set of rules make a bicycle a bicycle, so pick a part, draw it, then sequentially continue attaching parts per the rules, and at the end, it's a valid bicycle that functions. The resultant drawing is considered good, though I couldn't "see" any part of the bicycle before or while drawing. This isn't from an image, but it is arguably a mapping. Similarly, I've observed those who can mentally organize concepts but can't visualize pictures are often better able to render frameworks onto whiteboards than those who picture scenes. It's made me wonder if the same parts of the mind are used for the one or the other, as if remembering everything visually uses up circuitry that could support semantic-space-time.
- dumbo-octopus 2y ago
  A anecdote along the same lines as your drawing vs constructing observation: I happen to be fairly adept at wood working. And I often think up novel constructions that people quite fancy and indeed are willing to pay their hard earned bucks for. Once I have thought these things up, I am able to render them to paper/CAD very easily for concrete plan creation. I am never surprised at the appearance of the thing when it is rendered to CAD, I always knew that’s what it would look like. I never saw it in any visual sense, but I knew exactly how it would appear, and I could answer in great detail any question someone might have about it (barring, perhaps, the sorts of questions that require trigonometry/excessive number crunching – the reason I’m putting it to CAD/paper). To me, this means there isn’t a binary “has ‘imagination’/does not have ‘imagination’” divide. Rather, folks perhaps have different methods of “visualization”. Some folks have a “bitmap” approach (≈Photoshop). From the comments here, it seems some a “vector” approach (≈Illustrator). I would perhaps describe mine as a “CSG” approach (≈OpenSCAD/Grasshopper/etc.). What’s nice with this phrasing is that nobody is missing anything. Nobody is a-trait. Everyone just has a different method of doing the same sorta thing, perhaps with some relative strengths and weaknesses accordingly, but no fundamental lack of ability to answer any particular question. But who knows, maybe that’s just cope.

Terretta 2y ago

> Many aphants on the other hand have no issue depicting a well formed bicycle onto a paper, and furthermore would be able to identify faulty ones. As one, I don't draw, I construct. A set of rules make a bicycle a bicycle, so pick a part, draw it, then sequentially continue attaching parts per the rules, and at the end, it's a valid bicycle that functions. The resultant drawing is considered good, though I couldn't "see" any part of the bicycle before or while drawing. This isn't from an image, but it is arguably a mapping. Similarly, I've observed those who can mentally organize concepts but can't visualize pictures are often better able to render frameworks onto whiteboards than those who picture scenes. It's made me wonder if the same parts of the mind are used for the one or the other, as if remembering everything visually uses up circuitry that could support semantic-space-time.

dumbo-octopus 2y ago
A anecdote along the same lines as your drawing vs constructing observation: I happen to be fairly adept at wood working. And I often think up novel constructions that people quite fancy and indeed are willing to pay their hard earned bucks for. Once I have thought these things up, I am able to render them to paper/CAD very easily for concrete plan creation. I am never surprised at the appearance of the thing when it is rendered to CAD, I always knew that’s what it would look like. I never saw it in any visual sense, but I knew exactly how it would appear, and I could answer in great detail any question someone might have about it (barring, perhaps, the sorts of questions that require trigonometry/excessive number crunching – the reason I’m putting it to CAD/paper). To me, this means there isn’t a binary “has ‘imagination’/does not have ‘imagination’” divide. Rather, folks perhaps have different methods of “visualization”. Some folks have a “bitmap” approach (≈Photoshop). From the comments here, it seems some a “vector” approach (≈Illustrator). I would perhaps describe mine as a “CSG” approach (≈OpenSCAD/Grasshopper/etc.). What’s nice with this phrasing is that nobody is missing anything. Nobody is a-trait. Everyone just has a different method of doing the same sorta thing, perhaps with some relative strengths and weaknesses accordingly, but no fundamental lack of ability to answer any particular question. But who knows, maybe that’s just cope.