I can relate to everything Leigh says except for the inner monologue. I only have my thoughts no sounds. Your study explains exactly how I've tried to explain Aphantasia to others. I KNOW the image is there ... Somewhere .... I just can't access it.
Sorry Donna, when I said verbal I meant I think in words and full sentences, nothing abstract or visual. They are just my thoughts though, I don’t hear anything
Wow. Great work. More definitive proof of the different mechanisms behind how aphants brains work.
I have often felt that there was some connection to location in the brain and how signals move across or why they go where they go.
I have spent lots of time working on cohesion and it's helped with many of the other often indirect symptoms. Hasn't helped me create any images though:-(
I have always felt that there was a connection to the part my my brain that visualizes. Sometimes, I get what I think of as card catalog images. Like in the past when you flipped through a physical card catalog to look up a book. You would browse quickly glancing at information. For me a mental photo comes up like a flash and disappears. But the memory stays as long as I let go of trying to see the image. Details of an event unfold as if by magic.
I have also found that the more I draw, the more I internalize how to draw things and I don't need reference images anymore. I can just draw them when I want to for another drawing.
As for visualizing and object such as an apple, it just feels blank and dark. But if I think about our apple tree and picking apples, I can draw and describe those things.
It seems like the "imagery" is also tied to memory and other sense even though I can't conjure smells, sounds, tastes, or the way something feels.
I definitely see things without visualising, if that makes sense. I liken it more to memory. I can recall the houses I lived in when I was a child, a teenager & older; at school or in pubs etc. I remember the rooms, contents, conversations, what I was wearing at certain times, who was there and where in the room they were, even what I was thinking at the time. But it’s like remembering a photo, I can’t see what I didn’t see, I can’t manipulate the memory. My memory is better than everyone else I know. I can recognise actors by an expression on their face. I am the person friends call when they recognise an actor on TV but can’t recall from where. My inner dialogue is constant and completely verbal. I believe I have more of an emotional connection with characters in books than most people I know, but descriptions are mainly background noise. I think Aphantasia is an enhancement and we are more evolved.
Hard to explain. I can’t visualise at all. It’s like knowing without seeing it, I remember what things look like but from when I saw it. I know what people look like but couldn’t describe any particular facial features, not even my own, as I can’t “see” them.
Hi Prof Pearson. As I've mentioned in previous comments I've developed a theoretical framework over 40 years of how our minds work. Yet as a commoner with aphantasia and on the autism spectrum nobody takes me serious. I can put you decades ahead of other research centres.
To explain aphantasia I actually need to explain a lot about our minds first but just consider the following in good faith for now. In short. First of all, our real experience of reality hence of the world occurs at the subconscious level.
Our conscious experience is merely a feedback loop which gets saved to memory for our subconscious to feed on together with our senses. Only that which we get to experience consciously can be saved as memory which is why novelty takes presedence and why driving the same route or same cores is being put on the wayside and you sometimes can't remember driving to work or doing chores.
Eye witnesses with hyperphantasia will change their testimonies not because they are not reliable witnesses but for the fact that they continuously process mental imagery which continuously pass through the conscious level and gets saved as new memories overriding old memories. It's that simple.
Aphantasia can't visualize mental imagery and as such the original imagery remains intact making them more reliable witnesses which again is that simple. Also why aphantasia is not haunted hence scared of horror stories etc.
Intelligent animals by the way that can perform complicated tasks makes use of the recall of mental imagery which guides them. Aphantasia is on a advanced level of evolution and then also why some of your most brilliant minds will be found amongst aphantasias.
Yet they have poor memory recall where hyperphantasia had excellent memory recall but mostly weaker logical abilities which can be explained in more detail. I'm bad at expressing myself in writing for obvious reasons as my mind is always far ahead.
I hereby invite you to a discussion on a WhatsApp video call where I can explain my theoretical framework.
In fact I invite anyone with a serious interest to come in contact with me. The amazing thing is my theory can literally explain everything, consciousness, synaesthesia, deja Vu, sleep paralysis, dreams, blind sight, sleep walking, schizophrenia, etc.
Ever wondered how you knew the phone was about to ring in a few seconds and you knew who it was or expecting someone you know coming around the corner moments later. How about qualia or why times feels to pass by faster as we age, the real reason. Why babies aquire language so effortlessly and on and on. Why the elder finds it difficult to follow a conversation despite no hearing loss.
All based on a very simple theoretical framework which by the way also sheds light on time space and energy.
I can relate to everything Leigh says except for the inner monologue. I only have my thoughts no sounds. Your study explains exactly how I've tried to explain Aphantasia to others. I KNOW the image is there ... Somewhere .... I just can't access it.
Sorry Donna, when I said verbal I meant I think in words and full sentences, nothing abstract or visual. They are just my thoughts though, I don’t hear anything
Yes!
Wow. Great work. More definitive proof of the different mechanisms behind how aphants brains work.
I have often felt that there was some connection to location in the brain and how signals move across or why they go where they go.
I have spent lots of time working on cohesion and it's helped with many of the other often indirect symptoms. Hasn't helped me create any images though:-(
I have always felt that there was a connection to the part my my brain that visualizes. Sometimes, I get what I think of as card catalog images. Like in the past when you flipped through a physical card catalog to look up a book. You would browse quickly glancing at information. For me a mental photo comes up like a flash and disappears. But the memory stays as long as I let go of trying to see the image. Details of an event unfold as if by magic.
I have also found that the more I draw, the more I internalize how to draw things and I don't need reference images anymore. I can just draw them when I want to for another drawing.
As for visualizing and object such as an apple, it just feels blank and dark. But if I think about our apple tree and picking apples, I can draw and describe those things.
It seems like the "imagery" is also tied to memory and other sense even though I can't conjure smells, sounds, tastes, or the way something feels.
I definitely see things without visualising, if that makes sense. I liken it more to memory. I can recall the houses I lived in when I was a child, a teenager & older; at school or in pubs etc. I remember the rooms, contents, conversations, what I was wearing at certain times, who was there and where in the room they were, even what I was thinking at the time. But it’s like remembering a photo, I can’t see what I didn’t see, I can’t manipulate the memory. My memory is better than everyone else I know. I can recognise actors by an expression on their face. I am the person friends call when they recognise an actor on TV but can’t recall from where. My inner dialogue is constant and completely verbal. I believe I have more of an emotional connection with characters in books than most people I know, but descriptions are mainly background noise. I think Aphantasia is an enhancement and we are more evolved.
Do you have mental imagery?
No, I can’t visualise at all.
Can you explain mental imagery?
Hard to explain. I can’t visualise at all. It’s like knowing without seeing it, I remember what things look like but from when I saw it. I know what people look like but couldn’t describe any particular facial features, not even my own, as I can’t “see” them.
Hi Prof Pearson. As I've mentioned in previous comments I've developed a theoretical framework over 40 years of how our minds work. Yet as a commoner with aphantasia and on the autism spectrum nobody takes me serious. I can put you decades ahead of other research centres.
To explain aphantasia I actually need to explain a lot about our minds first but just consider the following in good faith for now. In short. First of all, our real experience of reality hence of the world occurs at the subconscious level.
Our conscious experience is merely a feedback loop which gets saved to memory for our subconscious to feed on together with our senses. Only that which we get to experience consciously can be saved as memory which is why novelty takes presedence and why driving the same route or same cores is being put on the wayside and you sometimes can't remember driving to work or doing chores.
Eye witnesses with hyperphantasia will change their testimonies not because they are not reliable witnesses but for the fact that they continuously process mental imagery which continuously pass through the conscious level and gets saved as new memories overriding old memories. It's that simple.
Aphantasia can't visualize mental imagery and as such the original imagery remains intact making them more reliable witnesses which again is that simple. Also why aphantasia is not haunted hence scared of horror stories etc.
Intelligent animals by the way that can perform complicated tasks makes use of the recall of mental imagery which guides them. Aphantasia is on a advanced level of evolution and then also why some of your most brilliant minds will be found amongst aphantasias.
Yet they have poor memory recall where hyperphantasia had excellent memory recall but mostly weaker logical abilities which can be explained in more detail. I'm bad at expressing myself in writing for obvious reasons as my mind is always far ahead.
I hereby invite you to a discussion on a WhatsApp video call where I can explain my theoretical framework.
In fact I invite anyone with a serious interest to come in contact with me. The amazing thing is my theory can literally explain everything, consciousness, synaesthesia, deja Vu, sleep paralysis, dreams, blind sight, sleep walking, schizophrenia, etc.
Ever wondered how you knew the phone was about to ring in a few seconds and you knew who it was or expecting someone you know coming around the corner moments later. How about qualia or why times feels to pass by faster as we age, the real reason. Why babies aquire language so effortlessly and on and on. Why the elder finds it difficult to follow a conversation despite no hearing loss.
All based on a very simple theoretical framework which by the way also sheds light on time space and energy.
I'm from South Africa
Bushy Van Eck
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