The blind mind: No sensory visual imagery in aphantasia

Re:The blind mind: No sensory visual imagery in aphantasia by cybersol on Wednesday January 02, 2019 @07:15AM (#18805716)

So I have aphantasia, and I first realized when talking to someone about mental images and memories. They have photorealistic pictures in their mind, or even video scenes like a movie. At my best I have something like an expressionist painting with words and concepts arranged spatially on blobs of color representing the object. More typically, just blackness.

Here is another description of it, and a test in the first part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewsGmhAjjjI

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Re:The blind mind: No sensory visual imagery in aphantasia by mirimir on Wednesday January 02, 2019 @07:27AM (#18805754)

I still suspect semantic confusion.

I mean, how does driving work, when you see what you imagine?

Edit: And now that I think of it, I have had some accidents where I reacted to what I expected the other driver to do. But they did something else. One in particular I remember. The car ahead of me had a turn signal flashing. I thought that it was the right one. Or at least, that's what I remembered. So I passed on the left. And hit the other car, because it had turned left. And I recall thinking that I actually saw the car turn right.

I'm glad that doesn't happen more often :)

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Re:The blind mind: No sensory visual imagery in aphantasia by cybersol on Wednesday January 02, 2019 @07:51AM (#18805845)

I think mentally imagining while driving is probably dangerous for everyone, normal and aphantasiac. It's a question I otherwise can't answer, since I just see mostly blackness. Though I liked nnnn's answer about a second monitor, separate from his visual input stream.

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Re:The blind mind: No sensory visual imagery in aphantasia by mirimir on Wednesday January 02, 2019 @08:01AM (#18805879)

If that's a literally accurate description, then I am indeed aphantasic. Because I don't actually "see" anything. I can describe it as if I were seeing it. I know what d orbitals look like, and benzene rings, and rotating hypercubes and hyperspheres. But there's no experience of a "second monitor, separate from his visual input stream".

It does remind me of blindsight. That is, people who complain of blindess, but obviously do react to visual input.

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Re:The blind mind: No sensory visual imagery in aphantasia by nnnnnnnnnnnnn on Wednesday January 02, 2019 @02:45PM (#18809409)

I'm a woman. I'm glad you like my answer though

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