Wait, but, I know apples are red. I mean, picture "2 + 2 = " in your head and fill out the scene. What comes after the equals sign? It's 4, obviously. Nobody needs to hold anything in their visual field to know that.
Wouldn't a better test be one of "visual reasoning"? I'm thinking: construct a visual scene, object A is on top of object B, etc., and then ask a question that would be obvious to someone actually seeing the scene, but very difficult to reason out otherwise. Obviously such a test would be hard to come up with, hence why we don't seem to be able to talk about this stuff very well.
> I'm thinking: construct a visual scene, object A is on top of object B, etc., and then ask a question that would be obvious to someone actually seeing the scene, but very difficult to reason out otherwise. Obviously such a test would be hard to come up with, hence why we don't seem to be able to talk about this stuff very well.
Yeah. I mentioned this elsewhere in this thread but the big thing that made me understand (some of) the gulf in terms of visual rendering abilities was murder mysteries. I read a lot of them with friends and oftentimes mysteries rely on an ability to construct an image of the scene in your head. Not being able to solve such a mystery doesn't mean you have aphantasia, of course, but there's this feeling for me in these that they're literally impossible, and yet other people can definitely solve them.
feoren|2 years ago
Wouldn't a better test be one of "visual reasoning"? I'm thinking: construct a visual scene, object A is on top of object B, etc., and then ask a question that would be obvious to someone actually seeing the scene, but very difficult to reason out otherwise. Obviously such a test would be hard to come up with, hence why we don't seem to be able to talk about this stuff very well.
Forricide|2 years ago
Yeah. I mentioned this elsewhere in this thread but the big thing that made me understand (some of) the gulf in terms of visual rendering abilities was murder mysteries. I read a lot of them with friends and oftentimes mysteries rely on an ability to construct an image of the scene in your head. Not being able to solve such a mystery doesn't mean you have aphantasia, of course, but there's this feeling for me in these that they're literally impossible, and yet other people can definitely solve them.