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Some people can't see mental images

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183 points petalmind | 1 comments | 30 Oct 25 17:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.358s | source
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WithinReason ◴[30 Oct 25 18:21 UTC] No.45763294[source]▶
I wonder what happens when you e.g. flash a 5 digit number to a person with aphantasia for say 0.1 seconds. Can they read it from memory? Or are they worse at this task than people with mental imagery? How about mentally rotating 3D objects?
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anthonypasq ◴[30 Oct 25 19:28 UTC] No.45764231[source]▶
that was what i was wondering. if i showed someone a strange sort of asymmetrical 3d object and told them to tell me what it would look like if there were looking at it from the back, it seems like it would be almost impossible to do.
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1. Matterless ◴[31 Oct 25 07:24 UTC] No.45769222[source]▶
If it's something I'm capable of figuring out, then I'll just know the answer (and I guess I'm pretty good at this sort of thing). I recognize that that's a terrible non-explanation but I can't explain what's happening outside of my awareness. I'm just good with spatial problems. I can't /visualize/ a damn thing but that doesn't appear to be necessary.