6 ms·

I don’t think this really has much to do with fidelity/clarity, so much as accuracy. One could have an extremely high fidelity visual of a bike that is incorrec

I don’t think this really has much to do with fidelity/clarity, so much as accuracy. One could have an extremely high fidelity visual of a bike that is incorrect and you wouldn’t say they had aphantasia as a result. I have aphantasia, I have no voluntary visual component to my mind as far as I can tell. I also have quite a good memory. If I were to draw a bike from memory I suspect I would make similar mistakes as those. One thing I have noticed in the threads that come up about aphantasia is comments either directly or indirectly calling into question its validity. I want to share a test I got from another HN comment, so I won’t take credit, that I have found to be the easiest way to explain to people how completely absent the visual component is for me. Close your eyes and imagine a ball bouncing across a table. Imagine the sound it makes as it goes. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. What colour is it? Most people I ask answer this question without hesitation. It’s easy, because they were just looking at it, maybe still are. I have asked this question of various friends tens of times, and I still don’t know what colour the ball is for me because it doesn’t exist. I know what a bouncing ball looks like, I know the sound it makes. I know what colour it could be. But I’ve never seen it. That is aphantasia. It’s not foggy, or blurry, or “low fidelity”, it’s just nothingness.

harrisi 1y ago
I think I have aphantasia, and there's two interesting things about this to me. One, I couldn't tell you what sound a ball makes when it bounces on a table. I've never thought about absence of other senses but, thinking about it a bit, I can't really think of what a glass feels like or a fire smells like either. I have descriptions for all of them, like a glass is hard or a fire smells like.. smoke? Not really the best description. But in all of these cases, I instantly know I'm touching a glass or smelling a fire when it happens. Two, I only thought of the ball in terms of the parabola it makes. When I read the color question, I can assign a color to it, but nothing in my "imagination" changes. There's just another word, blue or whatever, associated with it. Thanks for making me think!
- 1d22a 1y ago
  I also have aphantasia, and find it really interesting to hear about people thinking of things in a similar way to me! Thinking about the ball in terms of the parabola it makes it exactly what I do too. Similarly, the ball doesn't exist as a physical "ball", but rather the knowledge of the concept of a sphere (which doesn't then have size or colour). The table, not a physical table, but the concept of a plane (with no thickness, size, colour (or legs)) - just the 'concept' of the important properties. Despite aphantasia I have always been able to conceptualise spatial relationships, but it feels much less like trying to visualise it, and much more like "understanding" the fundamental properties connecting each thing.
  - aniviacat 1y ago
    I don't have aphantasia and I struggle to imagine anyone truly having complete aphantasia. If I tell you to draw a (low detail, toy, 2d) car, you probably would be able to - and quickly so. However, if I ask you to describe the shape of the car, you would certainly take a lot more time to think of a description anywhere near as accurate as what you've drawn. So what did you draw? Clearly not a description, as you do not have that available. Instead, you drew the image you have in your mind. Since I see so many people talking about having aphantasia, I assume my thinking is wrong somewhere. Can you tell me where I went wrong in this thought process? Do you, contrary to my assumption, actually have an accurate description of all the shapes you could draw (a car, a tree, a circus tent) readily available?
    - whatevertrevor 1y ago
      I don't have aphantasia but you might be wrong in many different ways: - you assume the outcome of your experiment which is not a given - even if the outcome is what you assume it is: there's the possibility of other explanations: for example having a pen paper to draw the car serves as an aid that helps them draw the car without having to imagine it. Just like having pen and paper can help me compute the square root of 4572847 without having to imagine the computation in my mind.
    - tstrimple 1y ago
      Readily available? No. But if I wanted to draw a car, I'm iterating through parts in that way. And the accuracy of our "mental description" is certainly in question. Similar to how folks who can "picture a bicycle" can picture it incorrectly. My wife and I have very different navigation skills. She can almost always tell me the compass direction and she's very good at relative directions. If she's in the house, she can instantly point in the correct direction of our children's school. I've got to stop and think through the steps I'd take to get there. I have to "reason" it out and she can just "see" it. It's almost like she's looking at a map of places and I'm dealing with a graph of nodes. I can walk the graph and understand how places are connected. But I can't really step back and see the bigger picture like she can. And I've got a lot of gaps in my graph because I only add nodes when needed. I could drive by a church a hundred times and not be able to tell you it exists. But when my daughter has a girl scouts meetings there, the graph gets updated.
- foobarchu 1y ago
  Yeah I describe my imagination to people as kinetic. Even if I'm trying to "see" a static object, it's in a form like a sparkler drawing. Similarly, I can't hear a particular song in my head even if it's an earworm. Instead, I hear a rough approximation of it as if I were trying to describe it to someone else (instruments as mouth sounds, bad falsetto, and so on)
- Tyr42 1y ago
  So, I do not have aphantasia, but I do have an impossible time recalling tastes. Kinda like how you describe your lack of memory of glass. I can tell apart a strawberry from a pineapple, but I can't re-experience a taste later. If I want to compare two things, I need to taste them back to back. Or I need to write down what I think to compare with next time. But I have no problem remembering things like: how crunchy or floppy the pizza was. That's not taste.
- tstrimple 1y ago
  I have aphantasia, but it doesn't extend to imagined sounds. It's almost the opposite really. I can imagine a variety of sounds a ball might make hitting a table depending on materials involved. When I've got a song stuck in my head it tends to be quite detailed. Full instrumentals and all. That doesn't mean I have perfect recall of songs or music to any degree. And it's not exactly voluntary. I can't tell you the full lyrics to any song off the top of my head. But when I get a song stuck there, I can "play" through it all and pick out details.

harrisi 1y ago

I think I have aphantasia, and there's two interesting things about this to me. One, I couldn't tell you what sound a ball makes when it bounces on a table. I've never thought about absence of other senses but, thinking about it a bit, I can't really think of what a glass feels like or a fire smells like either. I have descriptions for all of them, like a glass is hard or a fire smells like.. smoke? Not really the best description. But in all of these cases, I instantly know I'm touching a glass or smelling a fire when it happens. Two, I only thought of the ball in terms of the parabola it makes. When I read the color question, I can assign a color to it, but nothing in my "imagination" changes. There's just another word, blue or whatever, associated with it. Thanks for making me think!

1d22a 1y ago
I also have aphantasia, and find it really interesting to hear about people thinking of things in a similar way to me! Thinking about the ball in terms of the parabola it makes it exactly what I do too. Similarly, the ball doesn't exist as a physical "ball", but rather the knowledge of the concept of a sphere (which doesn't then have size or colour). The table, not a physical table, but the concept of a plane (with no thickness, size, colour (or legs)) - just the 'concept' of the important properties. Despite aphantasia I have always been able to conceptualise spatial relationships, but it feels much less like trying to visualise it, and much more like "understanding" the fundamental properties connecting each thing.
- aniviacat 1y ago
  I don't have aphantasia and I struggle to imagine anyone truly having complete aphantasia. If I tell you to draw a (low detail, toy, 2d) car, you probably would be able to - and quickly so. However, if I ask you to describe the shape of the car, you would certainly take a lot more time to think of a description anywhere near as accurate as what you've drawn. So what did you draw? Clearly not a description, as you do not have that available. Instead, you drew the image you have in your mind. Since I see so many people talking about having aphantasia, I assume my thinking is wrong somewhere. Can you tell me where I went wrong in this thought process? Do you, contrary to my assumption, actually have an accurate description of all the shapes you could draw (a car, a tree, a circus tent) readily available?
  - whatevertrevor 1y ago
    I don't have aphantasia but you might be wrong in many different ways: - you assume the outcome of your experiment which is not a given - even if the outcome is what you assume it is: there's the possibility of other explanations: for example having a pen paper to draw the car serves as an aid that helps them draw the car without having to imagine it. Just like having pen and paper can help me compute the square root of 4572847 without having to imagine the computation in my mind.
  - tstrimple 1y ago
    Readily available? No. But if I wanted to draw a car, I'm iterating through parts in that way. And the accuracy of our "mental description" is certainly in question. Similar to how folks who can "picture a bicycle" can picture it incorrectly. My wife and I have very different navigation skills. She can almost always tell me the compass direction and she's very good at relative directions. If she's in the house, she can instantly point in the correct direction of our children's school. I've got to stop and think through the steps I'd take to get there. I have to "reason" it out and she can just "see" it. It's almost like she's looking at a map of places and I'm dealing with a graph of nodes. I can walk the graph and understand how places are connected. But I can't really step back and see the bigger picture like she can. And I've got a lot of gaps in my graph because I only add nodes when needed. I could drive by a church a hundred times and not be able to tell you it exists. But when my daughter has a girl scouts meetings there, the graph gets updated.
foobarchu 1y ago
Yeah I describe my imagination to people as kinetic. Even if I'm trying to "see" a static object, it's in a form like a sparkler drawing. Similarly, I can't hear a particular song in my head even if it's an earworm. Instead, I hear a rough approximation of it as if I were trying to describe it to someone else (instruments as mouth sounds, bad falsetto, and so on)
Tyr42 1y ago
So, I do not have aphantasia, but I do have an impossible time recalling tastes. Kinda like how you describe your lack of memory of glass. I can tell apart a strawberry from a pineapple, but I can't re-experience a taste later. If I want to compare two things, I need to taste them back to back. Or I need to write down what I think to compare with next time. But I have no problem remembering things like: how crunchy or floppy the pizza was. That's not taste.
tstrimple 1y ago
I have aphantasia, but it doesn't extend to imagined sounds. It's almost the opposite really. I can imagine a variety of sounds a ball might make hitting a table depending on materials involved. When I've got a song stuck in my head it tends to be quite detailed. Full instrumentals and all. That doesn't mean I have perfect recall of songs or music to any degree. And it's not exactly voluntary. I can't tell you the full lyrics to any song off the top of my head. But when I get a song stuck there, I can "play" through it all and pick out details.