To ask you all about your minds eye?

[GrampieRabbit]

I've had a really long running thread about this a few years ago, but I wanted to revisit it - firstly because I find it really interesting, and secondly for dissertation ideas

So I don't have a minds eye. I couldn't picture a tree in my head, or a house, or my baby's face. I couldn't tell you 100% which colour my room is painted in, or what colour my dads car is. I literally think in words.

This means I have trouble with directions, even to places I've been several times. My memory is absolutely terrible - my long term memory is practically non existent.

Does anyone else experience similar? There's a test you can take here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-340390544*

I know I want to do my dissertation on this condition. I'm so fascinated by it, and have been ever since I realised it was actually a thing (on Mumsnet!)

But I want it to be on aphantasia AND something. I was thinking aphantasia and memory.

But I remember that last time I had a thread on this, Mumsnetters with aphantasia (and myself) read extraordinarily quickly, and always had done from a young age. So I was thinking maybe I could test the strength of participant's minds eyes (couldn't work out the grammar for that phrase!), and then timing them whilst they read something. But might have to include some comprehension questions I guess to check they've actually read it.

Then I started thinking about the fact that people said they had always read quickly - so is this something we're born with? Could I figure out a way to test kids for it? Maybe a little too complicated?

My dissertation proposal's due in a couple of days. It can be really vague - I could probably just get away with writing 'aphantasia', but I want to get paired with the most appropriate supervisor, hence the forward thinking. Am waiting on DD to go to bed then I'll research some more, but these are just some initial ideas.

Please, please share your experiences of aphantasia and thoughts on interesting dissertation ideas

And glad that people are being so touched by this post - I know it's not great but I felt happy to realise that what I had had a name, and I wasn't alone.

Looking at your later hypotheses (which I agree are better), these are weaknesses I can see at first glance:

(1) studies show that words which invoke a complex mental image take up storage capacity in our memories - makes sense that people who don't produce these mental images have more 'space' to remember words

i) This assumes that memory is finite and that all people have the same amount.

If you apply this argument to a more well researched/familiar area you would see its weaknesses: "Vocabulary takes up storage capacity in our memories; it therefore makes sense that bilingual people should have less space to remember words in each language". Or why not: "Exercise uses up energy. It therefore makes sense that people who exercise regularly should have less energy to do household chores". As we all know, exercise makes you fitter for other tasks too, and there is good evidence that bilingualism helps general language skills.

This does not necessarily mean that something similar applies here: just that it is probably wisest not to make assumptions at all unless they can be tested.

ii) it also assumes that a visualiser has no control over their visualising. This you would have to establish first, by suitable questioning. I, for one, am quite capable of reading an academic report or student essay without being held up by visualising: I have a "work mode" of reading and an "experience" mode. I wouldn't be surprised if that holds true for a lot of visualisers. (Incidentally, I am also bilingual, and again quite capable of holding the two languages apart)

iii) you should maybe look at ancient Greek/Roman ideas of visualising as an aid to rhetoric (working with words), an idea that has recently resurged on television in Sherlock's "mind palace". This will at least show you that people have not always assumed that visualising works against verbal memory; the original technique was specifically about turning people into better speakers.

(2) if you've always thought and remembered in words, it's likely you'll be more skilled at a word recall game just due to constant practice in a related area

See above, 1 ii. Given the nature of my job, I have to deal in words and have done so from an early age. The fact that I have also spent a lot of time visualising doesn't detract from all the hours I have spent mucking around with words.

Somebody who only plays the piano isn't necessarily better at playing the piano than somebody who also plays the trombone. They don't even necessarily spend more time playing the piano than the person who plays the two.

Finding this interesting too!

I personally don't think the test linked to is very reliable. I initially thought "sure, I can visualise a rainbow, vividly" but when I really think about it, I'm not sure I really am 'seeing' a rainbow - if I try to zoom in at the image, I definitely can't see all the colours at one time. It's more a 'feeling' of seeing a rainbow. But maybe that is what people actually mean when they say they can 'see' a rainbow in their mind??!

Maybe OP you could somehow devise another test where the questions are more specific and/or indirect (rather than just 'can you visualise X?') That's if you don't have enough to do with all the other suggestions thrown at you

I identify with the posters who say they can visualise a person's face only by thinking of a specific photo of their face.

I find it easy to copy sketches of pictures/photos in front of me, but absolutely cannot draw something from scratch/imagination.

I also find it impossible to 'count sheep' - I have to concentrate really hard to visualise the fence, and then when I visualise the sheep, the fence disappears!

I have awful spatial and direction skills. I can't follow an aerobics instructor or copy what a physio is showing me. Unobservant. Good with numbers and maths though.

Sorry if this goes against the hypothesis but I am not very good verbally. I often get stuck mid-sentence trying to think of a word, or I'll not be able to explain something properly and get all flustered and nonsensical.

I don't think I'm a particularly fast reader but I definitely skip through descriptive paragraphs - I'll just summarise to myself: "there's an old man sitting in a garden", for example, instead of digesting a whole page of how: "under a lone oak tree, the late afternoon sunlight is forming dappled patterns on a hunched figure blah blah..." :)

This has re-ignited an interest in linguistics with me, I'm off to dust off the Steven Pinker book I bought many years ago.

This is a very self-indulgent post sorry Good luck OP

When people say they can see in their heads, do they mean in actual pictures? I would say I can see, I could describe something from my mind or draw a picture from it, but I don't actually "see" anything. I've always felt it was poorly named, and it's something else entirely, not sight. Because if you are vividly seeing things in your head isn't that a hallucination?

Gosh this is so fascinating. My minds eye is not sharp at imagining things - I'm not good with remembering the details of faces especially (and I'm terrible with names too which I don't think is a coincidence). But I am great at remembering places, I remember routes visually. I recall where people were stood/sat in conversations and can recall the whole thing that way. In my exams if there were things I really struggled to remember during revision i would stick post it notes in places round the house and in the exam be able to shut my eyes and read the note in the bathroom for example. In fact years on I can still tell you what some said! When I read I feel like I am slowed down by visualising the story but I can do it.

Wheelycote it's like a narration, isn't it? Thinking in words, I mean.

Oh my, I've just realised that not only do I do this all the time, but so does DD1 - and when she was about 5-6 she used to do it out loud (constantly) and drive me nuts! I quite often narrate to music, words that describe what I'm thinking set to a well-known tune.

I thought of this thread this morning. I was in a meeting with colleagues who I don't know well, but will have met at least five or six times before, usually in meetings. They all knew who I was, what I do in the organisation, where our paths had crossed before etc. I didn't recognise any of them. OTOH, I could recite our organisation's strategic plan better than any of them.

Does anyone else struggle with throwing and catching as part of this? I can't throw or catch to save my life, and I now wonder if it's because I can't imagine the trajectory of whatever missile is heading towards me?

OP, I don't think I'm much use at hypotheses, but I'd be happy to help out as a participant if needed once you know what you're doing. I'm also thinking of contacting the Exeter people because it sounds interesting.

OP, I think your idea dovetails rather well with studies on the superior memory capabilities of blind people. In one study blind volunteers were able to remember significantly more words read out from a list than sighted volunteers. The result was explained as being due to the visual cortex being co-opted for other functions, an example of cross-modal neuroplasticity.

I think the idea of the brain reassigning an underutilised area to another task and thereby enhancing ability in that task is worth exploring in the case of aphantasia too. Obviously the aphantasic uses their visual cortex to see external objects but there may be some region of the visual processing machinery involved in imagery that is under-developed, allowing other compensating modalities to take root.

I have no visual memory. I also can't "visualise" or whatever it is noises or smells or taste. So if asked to recall I song, I could sing it to myself in my head, but I couldn't hear the original song iyswim. My daughter is away on holiday ATM, and I couldn't visualise her face. Sometimes, when I'm not trying I get vague glimpses, but it's always almost there, never quite and when I try to do it... there's nothing at all.

To pick up on earlier themes...

Yes I was an early reader. I learnt at 3 and was fluent by the time I started primary. My daughter (who also has it) was the same - learnt U.K. Read at 3 and was reading Enid blyton by the time she started school. She's bright but not exceptionally clever (she's too set but not top of top set!)

I do find that I don't enjoy reading novels, neither does my daughter.... we read fact books, but I never got the point of novels. DD finds them boring. I also find I can't break down words to pronounce a new word. I can't visualise how words should sound.

I'm rubbish with faces... and as a teacher find it really tough. I have to use memory techniques to remember students' names. If o see them out and about, I wouldn't recognise someone out of context. But tell me a student's name, I can recite off a whole load of facts about them.

I definitely remember in words. So if trying to recall my daughter, I'll remember facts about her. I can never remember my left and right, but I do have a great sense of direction. I think it's a coping mechanism. I only ever need to go to a place once and I can find my way back again... but that's because I subconsciously make a note of facts about a place. So if lost, I would remember that on the left is a roundabout with a shop, but I wouldn't visualise this... I couldn't tell you what it looked like - it's just a fact I've taken in.

The plus side for me is that I'm great at remembering conversations and details about things. So when my husband and I row, I can recall things he said years ago - whole conversations.... needless to say that doesn't go down well with DH!

But I'm rubbish with celebrities... can never remember who anyone else. For example, I couldn't tell the difference between the two dumbledores (hadn't even noticed they were different) until I saw the two pictures side by side.

Two aspects op that I think would be interesting to study...

Aphantasia and IQ tests. I do really well on them until you need to rotate shapes or work out where the dots on the cube would be... I can never do this. DH says he just imagines the shape and flip it in his mind... whereas I have to calculate the rotation.... so I do feel that IQ tests fail here.

On a similar vein... the condition and maths. I was always great at algebra but crap at everything else... couldn't visualise shape changes etc...

I think these would be fascinating to study!

Well your post has certainly led to me finding even more about my DH's aphantasia - he can't visualise me or the DC's at all - whereas I can see him vividly - from the day we first met (including what he was wearing!).

I also overheard a conversation today - young man was telling a friend he recalled people by smell. The brain is fascinating!

Good luck with your dissertation!

I keep thinking about this fascinating thread/subject. I commented before about my very strong visual/minds eye ability (if you can call it that). Terrible with maps or directions though! But something that had me questioning things today was how various smells link to thoughts and very vivid memories, and I've realised now how often it happens to me. Every single time I open the spreads/condiments cupboard at home, I get a visual flashback of going to my grandmother's house as a child to stay over, opening the cupboard there and saying "yayyy, you have peanut butter!!". Every time. If I smell bacon cooking, I picture my dad 30 yrs ago, standing at the hob, tanned and bare-chested with an 80s gold chain draped down, looking very Miami Vice, cooking bacon. Again, it's every time the same exact memory for each individual smell, they don't get updated. There are hundreds of examples of this, that just weave throughout my day. I'm now noticing it more acutely, and the obsessive side of me is tempted to go to the library and bookshop tomorrow to read up on this whole subject.

I did the test and scored in the top 23% of people. I use visualisation a lot at work, I have do deal with a lot of different houses and if I need to recall something I'll literally take my mind on the journey - the road sign, the colour of the front door, the smell of the house, the tenants clothes or hair, the garden, the wall paper in the kitchen...etc. I can also visualise maps.

Weirdly I'm absolutely dreadful with faces and names.

InvisibleCities Thu 31-Aug-17 18:13:02
"When people say they can see in their heads, do they mean in actual pictures? I would say I can see, I could describe something from my mind or draw a picture from it, but I don't actually "see" anything. I've always felt it was poorly named, and it's something else entirely, not sight. Because if you are vividly seeing things in your head isn't that a hallucination?"

For it to be a hallucination you would have to believe it was real. With a hallucination you would believe that it was somehow happening outside of you and beyond your control. This is more like a waking dream that you know you are dreaming and can control to some extent.

To describe what I am doing just now, I am sitting in my living room in the UK and "seeing" on a double level. With my eyes, physically, I see my UK living room and part of the hall, I hear the sound of cars going by outside, I feel the sofa against my bum and the floor against my feet, and smell the garlic that was in tonight's supper. All these things are outside me and I can only avoid them by closing my eyes and sticking my fingers in my ears.

At the same time, I can see inside my own head the walk I went on in Scandinavia earlier in the week: I can see inside my head the view from the hill behind my parents' house in the morning light, I can feel the crisp dampness of an early autumn morning and the cold rock under my bare feet, I can hear the sounds of the fishing boats leaving harbour.

When I concentrate on this view, the view of my living room becomes fainter, though I am still aware it is here. When I concentrate on the here and now, the inside-my-head view grows fainter.

Interesting thread! I've asked people about a similar thing before; whether they think in pictures or words. I usually use the example of making a cup of tea - if they think about making a cup of tea, what do they see in their head? I only ever think in pictures/images - no words at all - so when I think about making a cup of tea, I get a mental picture of a mug with a teabag in it, and then pouring the water in, and so on. My other half thinks in words, so when she's thinking about making a cup of tea she sees a written list in her head along the lines of 'Get mug / put teabag in / pour in hot water' etc.
She does dream images though, so there is capacity there for her brain to work that way, it's just day to day thinking that is all words.
I find I'm not all that good at remembering faces, but I can often remember what people were wearing and things about them that they've told me.

Wow! This is the first time I am hearing about this, and it is fascinating! It has never occured to me that people don't think in pictures.

I see things very vividly in my mind. Like other people my thoughts are like an ongoing movie where I can see, touch, smell, taste and hear everything. When reading books I see and experience it as though I was there.

I'm good at art and creative things. A PP mentioned handedness as a factor. I'm left handed, and the other people I've known who are left handed have also been good at art. I wonder how many people who visualise things very vividly are left handed?

I dream in great detail too. Something I am trying to do at the moment is lucid dreaming. My dreams feel so real! I usually wake up once I realise I'm dreaming, but it is apparently something that can be learnt to control.

Very interesting thread, thanks OP!

I do lucid dreaming, OrangeFluff. I find it works best if I set the alarm earlier than I need/want to be up, get up, make a (non-caffeinated!) drink, watch TV for half an hour or so, then go back to sleep telling myself I'm going to dream, usually flying because I enjoy that. Funnily enough, my lucid dreams are in bright, vivid images. I've no idea why I can dream in glorious technicolour but can't see images when I'm awake.

I have very vivid imagination and a fast reader, but I am absolutely hopeless with song lyrics. I cannot tell you a whole lyric to any song, even those I listen to a million times!

This is so interesting, I need to read the whole thread.

I'm very very visual, think in pictures and have vivid visual dreams too.

However, I started reading early and still read extremely quickly, I can finish most books in a day.

I thought they might be connected, I sort of see a whole sentence at a time rather than each word individually.

I've had a few lucid dreams. I am aware in my sleep that I am directing my dream. I can't make myself do it though.

Out of my 5dc, one of them can do it too. When he was small (3 ish) he used to talk about an 'army' in his head and images bothering him in his mind before bedtime. He used to ask me constantly if I could hear the song he was playing in his mind. He just couldn't believe that I couldn't hear it too! Then he used to say, 'well I must be magic because I just choose a song, and there it is, playing in my mind!'

He is now 7 and when he does mental maths he actually covers his eyes so that he can 'see' better.

The last lucid dream I had, I really impressed myself! I was walking around a room (and knew I was only dreaming) and I was looking at the bricks in the wall very close up - they were totally believably real, gritty and hard when I hit my hand against them. There was a wooden sideboard, again, very realistic, when I knocked my hand against it it made a 'wooden' sound!

I woke up and felt vaguely proud that my mind could imagine such detail.

I found the test hard to do - both in that I did find it hard to summon up the images (which surprised me - I had never realised this before) but also it is hard to quantify how well you can visualise and of course very subjective so I would imagine the scores are quite "soft" data for research purposes.
I got 23/40 on the test.
As a couple of people have said though, I have an extremely good "mind's ear" and if I want to think of eg an answer to a quiz question or a piece of information, it is as if I can literally play a tape of someone saying that information in the past, e.g. My chemistry teacher 30 years ago, someone on TV, etc.
If I want to remember something I am reading in the short term, e.g. a list of things, if I say them out loud I can then sort of play the sound of me saying it again later in my mind and just hear the information again, which seems different to "remembering it"

I will ask my 9yearold to do the test for interest - she has an extremely good memory for written material - she reads something once and seems to remember it forever.
She says that she never dreams and she has never ever reported a dream to us, even when really young.

Sorry I haven't RTFT.

I had no "mind's eye" at all when I was younger, but developed one in adulthood. It's still much worse than most people's, but it is there whereas it was previously nonexistent. Incidentally I also have a great deal of trouble recognising people. I stare hard at new acquaintances I expect to see again, trying desperately to memorise a few features which will help me, but having chatted with somebody for half an hour one day, I could see her the following day and not know her. If I've seen someone a great many times (e.g. a former work colleague) I will recognise them fairly well. And there are some people whose features strike me as distinctive so that I can easily recognise them even after meeting them just once.

I never saw anything in my dreams (still don't). I dream a sort of plot: I know what is happening, but not because I see it. I just know. So I may dream the concept of being chased by a monster and then turning around and it's gone, but I couldn't describe the monster to you in any way.

This is a fascinating topic! I'm intrigued by the links with memory and reading, and I'll willingly help if I can. The previous threads about this had me boggling, I never realised it was possible that not everyone has a minds eye (although I have always speculated about how we might perceive colours and shapes differently...).
I have vivid images in my minds eye, read early and voraciously, but don't register what the text looks like, I just sort of hear it. Yep, I'm imagining everyone's voices when I read Mumsnet! Or, especially when reading descriptive things, I watch detailed scenes in my mind, as on tv, but in 3D, with temperature, smell, and the feeling of textures.
And when I recall text, I hear it again, although I can often picture the page, and whereabouts the words I read were on the page or screen. And yet in many ways I would say my memory can be rubbish - "scatty" apparently. I lose things. I forget why I came upstairs. I really struggle with verbal instructions, so for instance a list of directions flies out of my head - after "take the first right...", or "we need to ring x client...", which I can picture being said, the rest of it is a blank. If I write down a to do list, or scrawl a map, that's fine. I don't often need to look at it again to remember it. Right handed, and although my handwriting verges on illegible, on looking at it I can 'hear' it even if I can't 'read' it at all. Rereading things I wrote from nearly 20 years ago recently I could recall writing them, what I was wearing and had been doing that day...
Off to enjoy reading through the whole thread!

"I definitely think there will be exceptions. Though unfortunately I won't be asking you to take part - as I'm dreaming of getting published so need significant results"

Nothing like picking and choosing your subjects for a clinical trial.

Fwiw - I have similar, but with practice have learnt to visualise. When I was younger I couldn't 'see' the faces of my family. I can now.

I'm also a speed reader, young reader, but feel like I'd contradict your hypothesis

Btw, I got 8/40 and fell into the bottom 5% of the country. My visual imagination is really shit!