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Aphantasia (Lack Of Mental Imagery; 'Mind Blindness')

EnolaGaia said:
For what it's worth ...

My take on the subject is that it's more a matter of habits / internal skills learned during childhood rather than any somatic or neurological deficit per se.

I was 9 years old before the adults realized I was legally blind. During my childhood I'd developed elaborate tactics and strategies for coping - one of which was reliance on mental modeling / imagery. Once the visual deficit was corrected, I was left with considerable imaginative 'muscle mass' that's served me well ever since.

For example, it's been a running joke for 2 decades that my mind is like a large hangar within which complicated conceptual / abstract structures are sitting for my ready inspection. If someone asks a question about some component of the design at issue, I (figuratively) walk out to it in the hangar and check it from multiple angles.

The easy part is answering the question after stepping out into the hangar. The more difficult part is explaining the answer in words or illustrating it on a whiteboard.
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ditto - no words for some of the things i see - especially the ones in the black bit. My optic nerve still works, just nothing connected to it.
 
Swifty said:
Someone here might be able to help me remember a case of a woman who trained with some monks at the start of the last century and was able to create a though form entity, a man from my recollection who at first was only in the corner of her eyesight but eventually mixed with her and her group .. I seem to remember the monk's calling these entities tulupas, I've probably got the name wrong because Google doesn't come up with any results.

edit: here we go .. Tulpa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulpa

and ..

http://www.tulpa.info/faq/
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Magic and Mystery in Tibet by Alexandra David-Néel (I have a copy).
 
Swifty said:
Someone here might be able to help me remember a case of a woman who trained with some monks at the start of the last century and was able to create a though form entity, a man from my recollection who at first was only in the corner of her eyesight but eventually mixed with her and her group .. I seem to remember the monk's calling these entities tulupas, I've probably got the name wrong because Google doesn't come up with any results.

edit: here we go .. Tulpa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulpa

and ..

http://www.tulpa.info/faq/
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I remember that case, but not the details.
 
Enid Coleslaw said:
I had to look that up, but if I've grasped it right, and I think I have, yes I do.
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Interesting. If you don't mind (feel free to mind and tell me to mind my own etc):
Do you suffer from any colour blindness?
Can you manage 'pop-out' tests? So in this image can you find the one dissimilar character quickly? Or is it hard?
pop-up.gif
 
Coal said:
Interesting. If you don't mind (feel free to mind and tell me to mind my own etc):
Do you suffer from any colour blindness?
Can you manage 'pop-out' tests? So in this image can you find the one dissimilar character quickly? Or is it hard?View attachment 7926
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I don't mind at all. No colour blindness and I found it easily enough.
 
Enid Coleslaw said:
I don't mind at all. No colour blindness and I found it easily enough.
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I was musing on your being a disconnect with the Superior Colliculus, which is were we have our most basic pattern recognition systems. But that appears to be a bust.

Are you a good navigator - can you easily navigate to a place you've been before for example, without maps.
How is your ability to catch a small ball if lobbed (in a non threatening way) at you?
 
Coal said:
I was musing on your being a disconnect with the Superior Colliculus, which is were we have our most basic pattern recognition systems. But that appears to be a bust.

Are you a good navigator - can you easily navigate to a place you've been before for example, without maps.
How is your ability to catch a small ball if lobbed (in a non threatening way) at you?
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I'm a truly awful navigator and maps have always made little sense to me. I'm also pretty clumsy but I would probably catch the small ball most of the time.
 
Enid Coleslaw said:
So, it turns out that I've been 'suffering' from this condition - the inability to visualize - all my life!
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I was wondering, do you read fiction for pleasure?

Supposing I was reading a novel set in an English stately home. I would read the text on the page but at the same time would be imagining a kind of amalgamation of all of the houses and castles I have visited. Just as a kind of backdrop to what is actually going on in the story but still very much 'visible' in my mind. The characters in novels (in my mind), I can't seem to give a great deal of life to in terms of movement or appearance unless the author has done a particularly good job but they are always 'there', like people in dreams.

In fact, thinking back on novels I have read, the memory of them is quite dream-like.

Examples of when I didn't use remembered locations as a setting for a novel are -

The Little Stranger, which is set in an English stately home but when I read this I invented a new, completely imaginary house.
The Buried Giant, post Roman, pre-viking Britain. I can remember much of this as if it were a dream or memory.
A Dead Man in Deptford. This is a strange one. I bought this book from Waterstones in Newcastle and while I was reading it I was imagining a version of Elizabethan London superimposed upon the area around Grey's Monument.
 
Enid Coleslaw said:
So, it turns out that I've been 'suffering' from this condition - the inability to visualize - all my life! I never really thought much of it to be honest. I'm not sure I actually thought too much about what people meant when they asked you to visualize something. I would just basically think of adjectives that would describe the thing they were asking me to 'see' I suppose because I certainly wasn't getting anyimages! I know it sounds silly, but I honestly never really thought about it until I stumbled across this and did a little more research recently and I found it pretty interesting.

Does anyone else have any experiences with it?
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Just a week or two ago, on an art forum, I ran into someone with the same thing. Maybe it was you! But what I found very surprising is that this person could draw from her imagination much better than I can, despite being unable to visualize anything. I still don't really quite get it. :)
 
David Plankton said:
I was wondering, do you read fiction for pleasure?

Supposing I was reading a novel set in an English stately home. I would read the text on the page but at the same time would be imagining a kind of amalgamation of all of the houses and castles I have visited. Just as a kind of backdrop to what is actually going on in the story but still very much 'visible' in my mind. The characters in novels (in my mind), I can't seem to give a great deal of life to in terms of movement or appearance unless the author has done a particularly good job but they are always 'there', like people in dreams.

In fact, thinking back on novels I have read, the memory of them is quite dream-like.

Examples of when I didn't use remembered locations as a setting for a novel are -

The Little Stranger, which is set in an English stately home but when I read this I invented a new, completely imaginary house.
The Buried Giant, post Roman, pre-viking Britain. I can remember much of this as if it were a dream or memory.
A Dead Man in Deptford. This is a strange one. I bought this book from Waterstones in Newcastle and while I was reading it I was imagining a version of Elizabethan London superimposed upon the area around Grey's Monument.
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I do read quite a lot of novels for pleasure, but I'm willing to bet I don't get as much out of them as you because I can't really do that. I also have a terrible tendency to immediately forget what I've read a lot of the time, unless I really slow down my pace. The Little Stranger is one of my favourites
 
MetroGnome said:
Just a week or two ago, on an art forum, I ran into someone with the same thing. Maybe it was you! But what I found very surprising is that this person could draw from her imagination much better than I can, despite being unable to visualize anything. I still don't really quite get it. :)
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The only art forum I'm on is ArtTutor, it won't have been me though, I really can't draw well from imagination at all. Which forum was it? I'd be interested to read about anyone else who has this and how it affects them.
 
Enid Coleslaw said:
The only art forum I'm on is ArtTutor, it won't have been me though, I really can't draw well from imagination at all. Which forum was it? I'd be interested to read about anyone else who has this and how it affects them.
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It was on DeviantArt, but I fear I cannot remember where exactly.
 
I feel the need to pop in say that I think I have this too! I genuinely thought that when people said, "I can see it my mind", they were talking metaphorically.

The only times I've ever had a 'waking' visual image is the few (very few; three to be exact) times I've had hypnopompic visions.

I'm also an artist, and have no problem drawing or painting things from my imagination; I also have no problem with maps, am not colourblind, and dream in full colour vision.

I just cannot conjure up an image in my mind, or with my eyes closed, through sheer will; it's just black.
 
Fluttermoth said:
I feel the need to pop in say that I think I have this too! I genuinely thought that when people said, "I can see it my mind", they were talking metaphorically.

The only times I've ever had a 'waking' visual image is the few (very few; three to be exact) times I've had hypnopompic visions.

I'm also an artist, and have no problem drawing or painting things from my imagination; I also have no problem with maps, am not colourblind, and dream in full colour vision.

I just cannot conjure up an image in my mind, or with my eyes closed, through sheer will; it's just black.
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I think maybe I just wouldn't have been good at drawing from imagination either way! You've reminded me that the only visuals I've ever had are of 'seeing' the bedroom around me with my eyes closed a few times upon waking.
 
Enid Coleslaw said:
... You've reminded me that the only visuals I've ever had are of 'seeing' the bedroom around me with my eyes closed a few times upon waking.
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That's interesting, if I understand correctly ... It suggests you are capable of 'mental imagery' or have a functioning 'mind's eye', but aren't habituated / prone / whatever to employing it in waking life to display things your mind generates.
 
Also, another poster said her husband was the same BUT he never forgets a face. I'm absolutely the same. I find all of this very puzzling, but so interesting. I just wish I could express myself better when talking about it.
 
@Enid Coleslaw did you ever experience any concussions during early/late childhood, and/or did you ever undergo any surgeries around that time which necessitated the provision of a general anaesthetic?

I have a possible (but over-simplistic) working theory regarding the discontinuity of self, which might go some way to explaining certain self-perceptual perceptual ideosyncracies of, and by, the self.
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Ermintruder said:
@Enid Coleslaw did you ever experience any concussions during early/late childhood, and/or did you ever undergo any surgeries around that time which necessitated the provision of a general anaesthetic?

I have a possible (but over-simplistic) working theory regarding the discontinuity of self, which might go some way to explaining certain self-perceptual ideosyncracies
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No to both. I'm lucky enough to have never had ay serious physical injuries/operations whatsoever so far.
 
Enid Coleslaw said:
Just found this thread on Mumsnet:https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_b...-remember-anything-no-autobiographical-memory by another aphantasia sufferer who talks about not being able to remember her childhood/the past and I thought it would be interesting to note that I have exactly the same problem, as do a few others on that thread evidently. What to make of it, I'm not sure!
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Inability to generate internalized mental imagery (aphantasia) and shortcomings in autobiographical memory recall are two separate issues. They can be reciprocally interrelated / influential, but they're not the same thing.
 
Enid Coleslaw said:
Just found this thread on Mumsnet:https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_b...-remember-anything-no-autobiographical-memory by another aphantasia sufferer who talks about not being able to remember her childhood/the past and I thought it would be interesting to note that I have exactly the same problem, as do a few others on that thread evidently. What to make of it, I'm not sure!
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Newly published survey research suggests aphantasia is correlated with a range of other cognitive effects including problems with episodic memory (as Enid mentions ... ) and even dreaming.

Here's the introductory portion of a descriptive article. For more details follow the link to the full article.
People Who Can't See Things in Their Mind Could Have Memory Trouble Too, Study Finds

Not everyone can see pictures in their minds when they close their eyes and summon thoughts - an ability many of us take for granted.

While people have been aware of this phenomenon since the 1800s, it hasn't been widely studied, and was only recently named 'aphantasia'. This absence of voluntarily generated mental visual imagery is thought to be experienced by 2-5 percent of the population.

Recent studies suggest aphantasia is indeed a lack of visual imagery rather than the lack of awareness of having internal visual imagery - with some people experiencing loss of this ability after injuries.

Now new research has revealed that aphantasics also have other cognitive differences.

"We found that aphantasia isn't just associated with absent visual imagery, but also with a widespread pattern of changes to other important cognitive processes," said cognitive neuroscientist Alexei Dawes from Australia's University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney). ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/some-p...nd-it-might-make-it-hard-for-them-to-remember
 
Here are the bibliographic details and abstract for the published research. The full research report is accessible at the link below.

A cognitive profile of multi-sensory imagery, memory and dreaming in aphantasia
Alexei J. Dawes, Rebecca Keogh, Thomas Andrillon & Joel Pearson
Scientific Reports volume 10, Article number: 10022 (2020) .
Abstract
For most people, visual imagery is an innate feature of many of our internal experiences, and appears to play a critical role in supporting core cognitive processes. Some individuals, however, lack the ability to voluntarily generate visual imagery altogether – a condition termed “aphantasia”. Recent research suggests that aphantasia is a condition defined by the absence of visual imagery, rather than a lack of metacognitive awareness of internal visual imagery. Here we further illustrate a cognitive “fingerprint” of aphantasia, demonstrating that compared to control participants with imagery ability, aphantasic individuals report decreased imagery in other sensory domains, although not all report a complete lack of multi-sensory imagery. They also report less vivid and phenomenologically rich autobiographical memories and imagined future scenarios, suggesting a constructive role for visual imagery in representing episodic events. Interestingly, aphantasic individuals report fewer and qualitatively impoverished dreams compared to controls. However, spatial abilities appear unaffected, and aphantasic individuals do not appear to be considerably protected against all forms of trauma symptomatology in response to stressful life events. Collectively, these data suggest that imagery may be a normative representational tool for wider cognitive processes, highlighting the large inter-individual variability that characterises our internal mental representations.
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FULL ARTICLE: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65705-7
 
Newly published research indicates aphantasia involves a differential capacity for visual versus object memory operations.
People With This Rare Brain Condition Can't 'Count Sheep' in Their Mind

When falling asleep, it's not unusual to imagine a calm, provincial scene, like a flock of sheep jumping over a fence.

Some people with a rare and poorly understood condition find that task nearly impossible. ...

This is known as aphantasia, the inability to summon a mental picture of something from memory, whether it be a loved one's face or a familiar place. ...

While aphantasia might make counting sheep difficult, the condition has no apparent effect on a person's creativity or imagination, and only some report problems with their visual memory.

Most people with aphantasia live wholly functional and ordinary lives, and many do not realise they are different until adulthood. Some even have visual dreams, although not all. People with the condition can still describe and recognise what faces and places look like, which suggests their verbal imagination and spatial memory are still very much intact.

The latest study on the condition definitely supports this idea. In the experiment, 103 participants with and without aphantasia were shown photographs of three living rooms and asked to draw them on paper, once while looking at the photo and another time from memory. Afterward, the drawings were assessed by 2,795 online scorers for object and spatial details.

"Importantly, we observe no significant differences between control and aphantasic participants when drawing directly from an image, indicating these differences are specific to memory and not driven by differences in effort, drawing ability, or perceptual processing," the authors write.

"Indeed, aphantasic participants reported an equal confidence in their art abilities compared to controls, and many had experience with art classes and art-based careers." ...

In the end, the results suggest people with aphantasia lack visual imagery but have an intact spatial memory unconnected to the mind's eye. Other recent studies have found spatial memory is similarly intact.

Far more research is needed to figure out what is going on at a neurological level, but researchers think those with congenital aphantasia might experience something similar to those who are congenitally blind, and who can still describe and navigate the layout of a room, even though they can't 'see' it as such. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/people-with-aphantasia-can-t-visualise-sheep-jumping-over-a-fence
 
Here are the bibliographic details and abstract for the newly published research study.

Quantifying aphantasia through drawing: Those without visual imagery show deficits in object but not spatial memory
A.Bainbridge, ZoëPounder, Alison F. Eardley, Chris I.Baker
Cortex, Volume 135, February 2021, Pages 159-172
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.11.014

Abstract
Congenital aphantasia is a recently characterized variation of experience defined by the inability to form voluntary visual imagery, in individuals who are otherwise high performing. Because of this specific deficit to visual imagery, individuals with aphantasia serve as an ideal group for probing the nature of representations in visual memory, particularly the interplay of object, spatial, and symbolic information. Here, we conducted a large-scale online study of aphantasia and revealed a dissociation in object and spatial content in their memory representations. Sixty-one individuals with aphantasia and matched controls with typical imagery studied real-world scene images, and were asked to draw them from memory, and then later copy them during a matched perceptual condition. Drawings were objectively quantified by 2,795 online scorers for object and spatial details. Aphantasic participants recalled significantly fewer objects than controls, with less color in their drawings, and an increased reliance on verbal scaffolding. However, aphantasic participants showed high spatial accuracy equivalent to controls, and made significantly fewer memory errors. These differences between groups only manifested during recall, with no differences between groups during the matched perceptual condition. This object-specific memory impairment in individuals with aphantasia provides evidence for separate systems in memory that support object versus spatial information. The study also provides an important experimental validation for the existence of aphantasia as a variation in human imagery experience.
 
EnolaGaia said:
Here are the bibliographic details and abstract for the newly published research study.
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This is a condition I was entirely unaware of and had a look on YouTube for more information.

There is considerable related material and I watched the following video which I thought might be of interest.

It's 20 minutes in length and if you want to skip the initial artwork tutorial, the artist begins to explain her experience at 8:30 in the video.

'I AM AN ARTIST WHO CAN'T VISUALIZE | What is Aphantasia | Watercolor Ink Illustration'

 
I do not have aphantasia - I'm an author who 'runs the film' inside the mind and just writes down what happens.

But I do have the tendency to 'imagine' in reverse. For example, in Harry Potter (which I run as audio books to help me sleep, thank you, Stephen Fry), it is repeatedly stated that the dining room is on the right hand side of the entrance hall. I literally CANNOT envisage this. It is to the left. And I cannot relocate it however hard I try.

Also, I was asked to draw the inside of a building when writing with a co writer (we had to get the specifics of movement right for a TV thing). When we compared our drawings, mine was almost the mirror image of hers. And this happens all the time.

Is there a term for this?
 
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