Aphantasia - studying with no mental images?

[Cytokine2014]

"I have never visualized anything in my entire life. I can’t “see” my father’s face or a bouncing blue ball, my childhood bedroom or the run I went on ten minutes ago. I thought “counting sheep” was a metaphor. I’m 30 years old and I never knew a human could do any of this. And it is blowing my goddamned mind."



Notably, when you have this condition, you cannot really remember images from books clearly, and you don't really imagine pictures in your head when you read fiction.

Does anyone else have this? Any study tips for working with this challenge?

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[DingoPingo]

This is pretty interesting. Do you have this or someone you know?

 

[takeurmeds02]

You'd imagine theat would manifest in general memory recall right? Like an amnesia?

 

[Cytokine2014]

This is pretty interesting. Do you have this or someone you know?

Someone I know has this! It's fascinating... He can't, for example, remember what a diagram in a book looks like which makes many things complicated. He remembers lists of facts rather than what it looks like. Same thing with directions - he might know that you go left, right, left, left, etc, at various landmarks but he can't mentally walk through the turns he has to take.

 

[Cytokine2014]

You'd imagine theat would manifest in general memory recall right? Like an amnesia?

I'm not sure I know what you mean... My friend doesn't have any trouble remembering things; his memory is actually excellent. Remarkable, even. He's at a top 20 medical school. But he does have to say to himself "I turned off the stove" because he can't flip back through mental pictures to see his hand reaching out to change the dial.

 

[elu0315]

maybe i'm just suffering from a classic case of confirmation bias, but my god, i think i have this
i can hold an image in my head for half a second, max

 

[Cytokine2014]

maybe i'm just suffering from a classic case of confirmation bias, but my god, i think i have this
i can hold an image in my head for half a second, max

Test it perhaps? http://aphant.asia/have-i-got-aphantasia

 

[elu0315]

I didn't answer no image to all of them, but for 6/8. the other 2 were dim. I feel like this test can also suffer from confirmation bias though

 

[takeurmeds02]

I'm not sure I know what you mean... My friend doesn't have any trouble remembering things; his memory is actually excellent. Remarkable, even. He's at a top 20 medical school. But he does have to say to himself "I turned off the stove" because he can't flip back through mental pictures to see his hand reaching out to change the dial.

Well in order to remember anything, you would have to conjure up some image in your head. That's the basis of remembering.

 

[Cytokine2014]

Well in order to remember anything, you would have to conjure up some image in your head. That's the basis of remembering.

Actually, that is not true!
My friend remembers facts about how things happened. Obviously he remembers his mother, and can describe her face, but he cannot picture it in his head. He could say "brown hair, green eyes, little wrinkles around her mouth from smiling" but the picture doesn't pop up in his mind.

 

[takeurmeds02]

Actually, that is not true!
My friend remembers facts about how things happened. Obviously he remembers his mother, and can describe her face, but he cannot picture it in his head. He could say "brown hair, green eyes, little wrinkles around her mouth from smiling" but the picture doesn't pop up in his mind.

Hmmm, that's very interesting