But you can see people on this very thread claiming that they in fact do perceive visualization that way, and can overlay it on their physical vision. So you, in the sense of the poll at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49469365, might be "No, but I don't have aphantasia", which is where I am as well.
> Can you superimpose onto your actual visual field an arbitrary imagined image? Not just imagine what it would look like, but see it
This is your only question. No I cannot is my answer.
I don't know if its because I am aphantasic (which I definitely am) or not or if a phantasic would be able to do that either. Just because they can see something in their minds does not mean that they could superimpose it over the visual world they were seeing. I can only guess at this, but 'minds eye' is like another dimension. You can imagine things there, and your brain can simply focus on them instead of the signals you are getting from your optic nerves, or your auditory sensations, or the feelings from your butt as you sit on the chair.
I do not see things in my minds eye but I can conceptualise them perfectly well. I basically never remember if I have any dreams, perhaps I do not, but I do remember waking as if from a dream and realising that I had had a significant recognition moment, as if I had experienced a thing before. Perhaps I had a non-visual dream.
But as I keep saying, there are people on this thread that are saying they are literally equivalent. I don't know if I believe them, but that is what they are saying -- talk to them!
> This afterimage illusion, while a product of perception, serves as a bridge to understanding visualization
The way that illusion works is simple. You expose your eye to green light without moving your gaze (stare at the dot). The green receptors in your eye become tired in the receptor pattern of the apple. Then, you switch to the white light which is broad spectrum. You fail to see the green, leaving red (blue is almost green, and our colour triangle is not equilateral). So, you see an afterimage of the apple but in red. This fades quickly as your green receptors recover from the overload. It has nothing to with aphantasia and the article does not claim it does.