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

You might be interested in the book In the Mind’s Eye by Thomas West.
It’s about gifted dyslexic individuals who are able to visualise extremely well but the trade-off is that they struggle with verbal tasks. Many famous scientists seem to have had this characteristic.

www.amazon.co.uk/Minds-Eye-Thinkers-Dyslexia-Difficulties/dp/1573921556/ref=dp_ob_title_bk?tag=mumsnetforum-21

Related to this is the work by Silverman who describes two types of learners - the auditory-sequential learner and visual-spatial learner.

pegy.org.uk/Upside-Down%20Brilliance%20-A4%20pdf.pdf

Interesting.

Very fast reader and strong mind's eye here. I can still still images or moving ones, in full colour.

There was a thread on this very recently. Fascinating. I'm somewhere in between. I don't have a good visual imagination but I can call to mind images of familiar things - they are just not that clear.

I don't think I'm an auditory sequential learner or a visual-spatial learner really. I am very very written word-based. I don't learn well by listening but read copiously and fast and can memorise huge chunks of text. But I have little spatial awareness and don't get on well with pictures, diagrams etc at all.

I find this weird I can't remember what people look like but I can draw pictures of things. If you asked me what does my mum or children look like I can tell you they have blonde hair and blue eyes but couldn't picture what they look like in my head. I just talk in my head so to speak. I have very vivid dreams but when I'm awake it's just words. I find it sad as I can't remember what people I have lost looked like but know who they are when I see a picture.

Really interesting. By the by, is the phrase you are looking for visualisation skills or are you still able to visualise?

I am just like Hana and Mornington, l cannot visualise anything in my head, l have no sense of direction, cannot follow a list of directions, l also just read books without visualising the characters/scenes. When we move house l have to arrange and rearrange the furniture until l like where it is as l cannot 'see' it otherwise! My spatial awareness is rubbish too, l have to measure everything as l cannot work out if it will fit. I learnt to read before l started school and read anything and everything very quickly.

I did the test you linked to and got 11/40, but that was hard to quantify when l think about a person l know well (l thought of my Dad) l get a sense of who he is, his smell, how l feel around him but couldn't picture his face.

I am like this - virtually no mental images at all. I think I do see things when I dream, but not always (I think I can also dream that something's happened without visuals). If asked to visualise eg a room in my house to count its windows, I sort of mentally 'look' at where all the windows would be without seeing anything - so I think I compensate for no visual memory with spatial awareness. I was a quick reader, and can memorise things well if I put my mind to it (e.g. As a kid I used to memorise decks of cards), but unless I concentrate on memorising things I don't very easily at all (e.g. I'm terrible with song lyrics). I'm very bad at recognising faces.

I didn't know I was odd in this regard until reading about it about a year ago - I always though when people talked about mental images it was somehow metaphorical.

Here's an interesting issue that comes up in the history of philosophy. Empiricists worried about how we could have abstract ideas like the idea of a triangle (in general), given that when we think of a triangle it seems we imagine a particular triangle (isosceles, scalene, whatever). But without having mental images, if I'm asked to think of a triangle I just sort of think of a triangle - I couldn't then answer the question, 'is the triangle you're thinking of isosceles?' - it isn't anything because I've not thought of those specific properties yet. I wonder if without mental images it's easier to work at the abstract end of maths where it's more a matter of reasoning from definitions - I certainly preferred abstract algebra to anything that required visual intuitions.

Good luck with your PhD!

This is really interesting! My DH is always describing things to me (layouts for building projects etc) and I can't picture them at all, where he sees them very vividly. I was a very early reader, though I'd always linked that to having an older sibling who struggled with reading so I learnt over their shoulder...

Do you know if there's a link between this and poor facial recognition? Mine is abnormally bad, which might be because I don't retain images of people? Whereas like PP, I definitely remember words long past when they're useful...

My DP has no visual imagination whatsoever, and very little visual memory. His is all sounds smell and texture. I am really visual, and sometimes can't remember if a dream really happened or not. Im almost eidetic, but it doesn't work with numbers.

I can visualise things much easier than faces. If I think of faces, I get vague features but very quite detailed pictures of things. So a person would really have a fairly blank face unless I'm thinking of a specific feature like their nose.

I don't know if that is common or not but you could look at levels of aphantasia (e.g. The types of things people can visualise or the detail they can visualise) and, of that doesn't already exist, come up with a categorisation scheme and / or correlations between the levels and memory or reading speed.

I don't have mental images in my head, Sometimes I see something and it remind me of something and then I "see" it. I do remember feelings, and words and pictures. I have the image of a photo of a person but not the person itself.

I am a good reader and I have vivid dreams where I see all the people I cannot recall or imagine.

I have a mind's eye for some things, but I have absolutely no ability to remember some other things, such as directions or the arrangements of rooms, buildings, spaces etc. I write fiction as a hobby and I can picture characters and objects but not the layouts of rooms and places. I could show you the way to the bus stop 200 yards from my house. I have worked in my office for a year and I still don't really know where anything is apart from the lifts and the toilets. It's incredibly embarrassing. I've also never been able to learn to drive.

I write fiction as a hobby and I can picture people, objects, animals and things like colours, patterns, scenery etc in my head and describe them well, but I can't do the same with the layout of a room or town or whatever and I can't picture sequences of physical actions at all (ie I would really struggle to imagine a fight, for example).

If I wanted to remember, say, a load of objects on a tray or in a picture, I would have to say the words for them in my head and remember the list of words, not the actual things in their positions. It's the only way I can do it.

Interesting what you say about reading - I learnt to read at the age of two and could read at an adult level by the time I was seven or eight. I'm also very good at memorising words. I can remember the exact words that people have used in conversation with me.

Off to do the test now...

This is really interesting - I think in words. I think this is why despite living in my adopted country for 10 years and working in the local language with no English speaking colleagues, my internal monologue and dreams are still in English. Everyone thinks I should dream in the local language by now. I suspect it holds me back from true fluency.

I'm terrible with directions too, however I have a minds eye, and a very vivid and clear memory of actually learning to read, because I really struggled with it. My spelling is dreadful too - or was, it's better now I am oldish. I remember landmarks on journeys vividly, but not roads, and I have no sense of north/south/east/ west, or which direction the next town/ the sea / or even another house is from where I am standing if I can't see it.

Once I could read well I read a lot and fast - but not from a precocious age, rather from somewhere around age 9. I remember reading Lord of The Rings when I was 10 and remember blocks of text but also have visual memories of the room I read it in (I'd been made to give up my bedroom and sleep in a downstairs room to make way for a visiting creepy uncle I really disliked to stay in my room, and I remember the folding bed and the sleeping bag and the colour and feel and slightly musty smell of the carpet, and the spooky shadows on the wall and the strange noises the heating made in that room, which were different from the strange noises the heating made in my own bedroom).

I will come back to this.

I tried to do the test, but because I have no idea what good, moderate or whatever is in the context it was useless for me.

This is a fascinating area.

According to the test you linked to I come out as hyperphantasic and in the top 25% of visualisation.

However similarly to Museum I am also a very fast reader.

I store the memories of the text visually though. So if I wanted to look up a quotation from a book I'd be able to tell you left or right hand page, how far down the page it was, what colour the text was and if there were any charts, graphics, highlighted capitals or scribbles in the margin.

If I'm memorising text (e.g. A poem for recitation) I effectively read from the picture in my brain.

I don't have an edectic memory though, it takes effort to memorise things.

I definitely have a degree of aphantasia... I have known for a while that I am unable to visualise in my mind and first realised it when trying to visualise faces. Interestingly, I am also very word/language orientated. I read very early and excelled in languages. I also don't visualise when reading. I can appreciate beautiful descriptive writing for the quality of language used and it can evoke genuine emotion in me but I cannot visualise descriptions in my mind.

On the other hand I'm good with imagining how things will look in a setting.

Choosing furniture, art and rugs and the lot is one of my favourite things.

I have synaesthesia so this is fascinating for me!

I can also remember sequences of words and read quickly. The test for me came out as 13/40.

Same as NetRunner. I appreciate the beautiful descriptive writing but it's more of an emotion that a setting.

I do words. I know where I've read a text too, which side, top or bottom of a page.

I have to go somewhere about ten times before I remember the route.
And I've never understood people seeing a film, after reading the book and saying 'the Characters look different to how I imagined'
Because I've never been able to picture characters.
I just... read them.
I also am a very fast reader, for my French oral I got a high mark as I literally memorised every possible response phonetically. I Didn't have a clue what I was saying.
I also have zero spacial awareness.

Is there an aural version of this? When I am recalling something that someone has said to me, even several days/weeks later, I can 'hear' them say it, clearly, exactly in their voice/accent. I think that's why I was always good at languages/accents at school.

@ChardonnaysPrettySister ah I envy you this! I simply cannot visualise what things would look like in a room and it realllllly frustrates me. It's one of the times I find not being able to visualise a real pain.

Terrible spacial awareness here too...

And also same as Chardonnay - I can get the image of a photo of someone just about in my mind but not the person themselves. Interesting similarities!