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A comment on Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind. Parent comment

Re:Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind by SaidinWoT on Saturday June 22, 2024 @10:07PM (#40764100)
This is actually one of the things about aphantasia that has already had a (small) study[0], and the results are actually the opposite! The participants with aphantasia were more likely to both (a) take longer to answer and (b) be _correct_.

I personally have aphantasia and have quite good spatial reasoning, including with mentally rotating objects. I think it's fair to assume that visualization and spatial reasoning are mostly (but not entirely) orthogonal spectra, and it's completely possible for people to fall anywhere on either, just based on how their brain developed its internal strategies throughout normal life.

[0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26792259_Loss_of_im...

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Re:Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind by auggierose on Saturday June 22, 2024 @10:12PM (#40764132)
Yes, objective tests must somehow take into account the multitude of coping mechanisms that people with the condition have developed. "Spatial reasoning" for example is very close to logical reasoning, and I don't see why people with Aphantasia shouldn't be very good at that, albeit slower in "spatial" mode.
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