4 ms·

Those "spatial reasoning" questions look a lot like the IQ test I took as a kid (my parent brought me to the psychology department to be tested for some reason)

by dekhn 2y ago

Those "spatial reasoning" questions look a lot like the IQ test I took as a kid (my parent brought me to the psychology department to be tested for some reason). I really struggled with those and it wasn't until years later, talking with some other folks, that I realized I couldn't visualize mental rotations as well as most people. because of that, I invested heavily in 3d computer graphics, which helped tremendously when I worked in structural biology.

Semaphor 2y ago
> I realized I couldn't visualize mental rotations as well as most people I always struggled with those questions as well. Only decades later, when I realized I have aphantasia [0], did that, just like many other things, suddenly make sense. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia
- jaggederest 2y ago
  For what it's worth, I have perhaps the opposite[1], unless imagining a conversation or reading/writing I think almost entirely in mental pictures and the manipulation thereof. It's part of the reason my memory is so effective, and verbal reasoning confounds me to some degree. Cognitive behavioral therapy is definitely not set up for someone with no internal monologue, only an an internal "visiologue." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperphantasia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperphantasia PS "The vividness of mental imagery has a key role in the development and continuation of intrusive memories," ouch, does it ever. Every embarrassing moment I've ever had is right there at hand.
- yzydserd 2y ago
  Like GP, I remember doing these spatial reasoning puzzles as a kid, I thought as part of school curriculum. Like you, I have aphantasia. Unlike you, I’m very good at spatial puzzles like this. Hmm.
  - Semaphor 2y ago
    I was decent at the simple ones, where I could essentially map them logically. As long as it was simple enough to keep every step in my brain kinda "as text", I could solve them. Those in school were simple like that. But IQ tests have more complicated ones, and there I’d not manage to keep everything in mind.
    - mewpmewp2 2y ago
      I think I have kind of aphantasia as well, but I usually score well in those, but what I think is going on is that I solve everything kind of like an LLM would, with my internal monologue I will try to come up with the first simple idea, and then count the objects to see if it fits that idea, and then if not (likely not if it's a tricky one), I will start to bruteforce more ideas and then count the matching with my internal monologue rather than imagining anything. How are you at math, e.g. calculations in your head? All of it is much easier of course when you can write things down, or make notes. I'm not truly sure if I have aphantasia, but I do think I don't get as vivid imagery in my head considering what other people claim to see. Although I always thought they were embellishing it. But for example when reading books I never found any use for scene etc descriptions, and they seemed just words, while I think other people got images in their head, and for this reason those descriptions were good. Talking to Claude it thinks I don't have aphantasia, since I think I can see vague flashes of things. E.g. I try to recall my family member's face, I get what I think are vague flashes of the face. But it seems to require a lot of effort and definitely not voluntary based on text. But I may be better at imagining some abstract content, like numbers. E.g. if I have to remember a 2FA code, sometimes I can keep visual imagery for 3 of the numbers and the other 3 I keep repeating in my head. Maybe text and numbers I can keep visualisation better, but not true 2d or 3d detailed imagery. Out of curiousity can you imagine any numbers or abstract shapes at all?
      - Semaphor 2y ago
        It sounds like you are close to full aphantasia, but not quite. I usually describe it as having a memory of seeing something. > Out of curiousity can you imagine any numbers or abstract shapes at all? No, nothing at all, I have to (e.g. a 2FA code) repeat it to myself repeatedly, and then I’ll remember it by rhythm. Which is also how I remember e.g. months in a year, or the order of cardinal directions.
- mdswanson 2y ago
  You'll find it interesting that people with aphantasia (I have total, multi-sensory aphantasia) counterintuitively score better on mental rotation tasks: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810024000618 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381002...
  - Semaphor 2y ago
    I do indeed find that interesting. Checking the paper, it does make some sense to me. It’s similar to what I said in another comment [0], the people with aphantasia do a slower, more methodical approach. It then fails for me when there are too many steps required, which is not the case for simple rotations as in the paper. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42439783 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42439783
mise_en_place 2y ago
I'm more of a wordcel than a shape rotator myself. It's not that I can't, it's more so that I get terribly bored when doing it. The last time I can remember being excited about it was in elementary school, where I was tested for spatial reasoning and put in some gifted mathematics class. Incidentally, my verbal skills were very poor at the time, I tended towards being very quiet and keeping to myself. As I grew older and my verbal skills improved, I switched to the abstraction that comes with language. I also became more outgoing; I'm still an introvert but nowhere near what I was when I was a child. I suspect if you took a random Masaai hunter, they would do very well at these kinds of spatial reasoning tests. Even in my career as a software engineer, I still tend to rubber duck a lot and really excelled at pair-programming. That's why I really enjoy using LLMs when programming now. When I transitioned to engineering management, I learned over the years to get out of the way of my directs who performed better alone; many times I wouldn't even meet with them for a month, and that made them extremely productive. The issue with a lot of organizations is that they don't account for the variety in problem-solving techniques and abstractions that engineers use. Engineers are not some monolith that always need to be managed from the top-down; you should always play to their strengths and support a variety of problem-solving styles.
- mewpmewp2 2y ago
  > many times I wouldn't even meet with them for a month, and that made them extremely productive. That's an interesting idea. Since I feel like it's same for me. When I meet with people they have their ideas, suggestions and requirements that they put out and I feel like I have some sort of social obligation to meet them and eventually it might not fit very well into what I had planned and then I start to overthink related to how I can fit their ideas into what I was planning to do and it derails a lot. If I ignore the ideas I might need to justify it later or at some point, or argue immediately, but then so much energy will go towards justifying and debating, it will derail what I was to do anyway. It just I have this very strict big picture idea of what I'm planning to do in my head, and it feels impossible to share it with people without actually going through with it. Even if I wrote a massive document it wouldn't help I feel. I've actually got feedback in my past that I should consider other's opinions more when doing something, but then it just breaks down everything I was to do, and I feel like I could execute really quickly. I have trouble with group meetings as well, e.g. where people are going through tasks by splitting them down into subtasks, then discussing subtasks one by one, while I feel like I have a big picture thing, where I do not want to divide things into subtasks, since it's everything supposed to work together, and they can't be discussed individually. Although it's considered common best practice to divide and conquer, I feel like it's not how I best think. And I have idea for each subtask, but it's all coming from that "big picture" idea, and if I propose it I will have to start explaining the whole big picture I have in mind, and it would derail the whole thing, so I usually just let people discuss things out, because I can't explain the whole thing anyway. I can never be in sync with people in group meetings, so I'll just try to come up with things to pretend I'm being an active participant. I'm obsessed with this big picture idea, and excited about executing it, but everything around it demotivates me and kills the excitement.
bobcostas55 2y ago
People with aphantasia are actually _better_ at mental rotation tests! Lack of visualization is no obstacle to the brain, which of course has all sorts of interesting implications. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810024000618 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381002...
- yzydserd 2y ago
  Fascinating. Thank you for providing the paper. As someone with moderate aphantasia, it didn’t even occur to me that people performed “mental rotation” versus “analytic” strategies.
  - 4gotunameagain 2y ago
    What analytic strategies do you utilise ? I'm heavily on the mental rotation camp, I suppose.
technothrasher 2y ago
> Those "spatial reasoning" questions look a lot like the IQ test I took as a kid When we took my boy for a WISC (children's IQ test) when he was ten, as part of a larger neuropsych test, he had enormous trouble with the spatial reasoning parts. The funny thing was that the test wouldn't score, as he was getting less than 5% on some of sections and more than 95% on others. This is a pattern that is apparently unlikely enough that the test assumes you aren't taking it seriously and gives up. So his IQ result was effectively "NaN". Based on that and other parts of the neuropsych, he was informally diagnosed with Non-Verbal Learning Disability (informally because NVLD isn't currently in the DSM). While the IQ test was useless for him, thankfully the diagnosis was enough to get him into a school who understood his learning style and he went from completely failing out of school in sixth grade to now just getting accepted to a highly competitive college in NYC.

by dekhn 2y ago

Semaphor 2y ago

> I realized I couldn't visualize mental rotations as well as most people I always struggled with those questions as well. Only decades later, when I realized I have aphantasia [0], did that, just like many other things, suddenly make sense. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia

jaggederest 2y ago
For what it's worth, I have perhaps the opposite[1], unless imagining a conversation or reading/writing I think almost entirely in mental pictures and the manipulation thereof. It's part of the reason my memory is so effective, and verbal reasoning confounds me to some degree. Cognitive behavioral therapy is definitely not set up for someone with no internal monologue, only an an internal "visiologue." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperphantasia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperphantasia PS "The vividness of mental imagery has a key role in the development and continuation of intrusive memories," ouch, does it ever. Every embarrassing moment I've ever had is right there at hand.
yzydserd 2y ago
Like GP, I remember doing these spatial reasoning puzzles as a kid, I thought as part of school curriculum. Like you, I have aphantasia. Unlike you, I’m very good at spatial puzzles like this. Hmm.
- Semaphor 2y ago
  I was decent at the simple ones, where I could essentially map them logically. As long as it was simple enough to keep every step in my brain kinda "as text", I could solve them. Those in school were simple like that. But IQ tests have more complicated ones, and there I’d not manage to keep everything in mind.
  - mewpmewp2 2y ago
    I think I have kind of aphantasia as well, but I usually score well in those, but what I think is going on is that I solve everything kind of like an LLM would, with my internal monologue I will try to come up with the first simple idea, and then count the objects to see if it fits that idea, and then if not (likely not if it's a tricky one), I will start to bruteforce more ideas and then count the matching with my internal monologue rather than imagining anything. How are you at math, e.g. calculations in your head? All of it is much easier of course when you can write things down, or make notes. I'm not truly sure if I have aphantasia, but I do think I don't get as vivid imagery in my head considering what other people claim to see. Although I always thought they were embellishing it. But for example when reading books I never found any use for scene etc descriptions, and they seemed just words, while I think other people got images in their head, and for this reason those descriptions were good. Talking to Claude it thinks I don't have aphantasia, since I think I can see vague flashes of things. E.g. I try to recall my family member's face, I get what I think are vague flashes of the face. But it seems to require a lot of effort and definitely not voluntary based on text. But I may be better at imagining some abstract content, like numbers. E.g. if I have to remember a 2FA code, sometimes I can keep visual imagery for 3 of the numbers and the other 3 I keep repeating in my head. Maybe text and numbers I can keep visualisation better, but not true 2d or 3d detailed imagery. Out of curiousity can you imagine any numbers or abstract shapes at all?
    - Semaphor 2y ago
      It sounds like you are close to full aphantasia, but not quite. I usually describe it as having a memory of seeing something. > Out of curiousity can you imagine any numbers or abstract shapes at all? No, nothing at all, I have to (e.g. a 2FA code) repeat it to myself repeatedly, and then I’ll remember it by rhythm. Which is also how I remember e.g. months in a year, or the order of cardinal directions.
mdswanson 2y ago
You'll find it interesting that people with aphantasia (I have total, multi-sensory aphantasia) counterintuitively score better on mental rotation tasks: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810024000618 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381002...
- Semaphor 2y ago
  I do indeed find that interesting. Checking the paper, it does make some sense to me. It’s similar to what I said in another comment [0], the people with aphantasia do a slower, more methodical approach. It then fails for me when there are too many steps required, which is not the case for simple rotations as in the paper. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42439783 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42439783

mise_en_place 2y ago

I'm more of a wordcel than a shape rotator myself. It's not that I can't, it's more so that I get terribly bored when doing it. The last time I can remember being excited about it was in elementary school, where I was tested for spatial reasoning and put in some gifted mathematics class. Incidentally, my verbal skills were very poor at the time, I tended towards being very quiet and keeping to myself. As I grew older and my verbal skills improved, I switched to the abstraction that comes with language. I also became more outgoing; I'm still an introvert but nowhere near what I was when I was a child. I suspect if you took a random Masaai hunter, they would do very well at these kinds of spatial reasoning tests. Even in my career as a software engineer, I still tend to rubber duck a lot and really excelled at pair-programming. That's why I really enjoy using LLMs when programming now. When I transitioned to engineering management, I learned over the years to get out of the way of my directs who performed better alone; many times I wouldn't even meet with them for a month, and that made them extremely productive. The issue with a lot of organizations is that they don't account for the variety in problem-solving techniques and abstractions that engineers use. Engineers are not some monolith that always need to be managed from the top-down; you should always play to their strengths and support a variety of problem-solving styles.

mewpmewp2 2y ago
> many times I wouldn't even meet with them for a month, and that made them extremely productive. That's an interesting idea. Since I feel like it's same for me. When I meet with people they have their ideas, suggestions and requirements that they put out and I feel like I have some sort of social obligation to meet them and eventually it might not fit very well into what I had planned and then I start to overthink related to how I can fit their ideas into what I was planning to do and it derails a lot. If I ignore the ideas I might need to justify it later or at some point, or argue immediately, but then so much energy will go towards justifying and debating, it will derail what I was to do anyway. It just I have this very strict big picture idea of what I'm planning to do in my head, and it feels impossible to share it with people without actually going through with it. Even if I wrote a massive document it wouldn't help I feel. I've actually got feedback in my past that I should consider other's opinions more when doing something, but then it just breaks down everything I was to do, and I feel like I could execute really quickly. I have trouble with group meetings as well, e.g. where people are going through tasks by splitting them down into subtasks, then discussing subtasks one by one, while I feel like I have a big picture thing, where I do not want to divide things into subtasks, since it's everything supposed to work together, and they can't be discussed individually. Although it's considered common best practice to divide and conquer, I feel like it's not how I best think. And I have idea for each subtask, but it's all coming from that "big picture" idea, and if I propose it I will have to start explaining the whole big picture I have in mind, and it would derail the whole thing, so I usually just let people discuss things out, because I can't explain the whole thing anyway. I can never be in sync with people in group meetings, so I'll just try to come up with things to pretend I'm being an active participant. I'm obsessed with this big picture idea, and excited about executing it, but everything around it demotivates me and kills the excitement.

bobcostas55 2y ago

People with aphantasia are actually _better_ at mental rotation tests! Lack of visualization is no obstacle to the brain, which of course has all sorts of interesting implications. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810024000618 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381002...

yzydserd 2y ago
Fascinating. Thank you for providing the paper. As someone with moderate aphantasia, it didn’t even occur to me that people performed “mental rotation” versus “analytic” strategies.
- 4gotunameagain 2y ago
  What analytic strategies do you utilise ? I'm heavily on the mental rotation camp, I suppose.

technothrasher 2y ago

> Those "spatial reasoning" questions look a lot like the IQ test I took as a kid When we took my boy for a WISC (children's IQ test) when he was ten, as part of a larger neuropsych test, he had enormous trouble with the spatial reasoning parts. The funny thing was that the test wouldn't score, as he was getting less than 5% on some of sections and more than 95% on others. This is a pattern that is apparently unlikely enough that the test assumes you aren't taking it seriously and gives up. So his IQ result was effectively "NaN". Based on that and other parts of the neuropsych, he was informally diagnosed with Non-Verbal Learning Disability (informally because NVLD isn't currently in the DSM). While the IQ test was useless for him, thankfully the diagnosis was enough to get him into a school who understood his learning style and he went from completely failing out of school in sixth grade to now just getting accepted to a highly competitive college in NYC.