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0 pointsdeadbeeves2y ago0 comments

From talking to people, I would say it exists on a spectrum. I can imagine an apple, the color and texture of its skin, how it feels to touch it, its weightiness, its smell, the sound it'll make when I bite into it, as well as its taste and texture. I can imagine it at different levels of ripeness too, although I don't have the same amount of information for all of them. For me it's so clear that it's almost as good as the real thing.

Some people I've talked to said they couldn't do most of that. They said they could think of an apple, but couldn't tell me much more about it, other than that it was an apple. Now, obviously I can't peer into their heads. Were they actually imagining more but were unable to put it into words? Were they underestimating the vividness of what they were imagining? Or were they accurately describing what was in their minds? Although I can't directly experience their minds, there were certainly differences between what each of us could describe.

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4star3star2y ago

I watched a video from a woman talking about her aphantasia. I was struck by the fact that she is an avid reader and enjoys fiction. She said she processes descriptive text as facts. Like, if she read, "Raindrops glistened in the afternoon light as they rolled off the red maple leafs, falling peacefully to the lush green grass, below," she would just have a list of facts in her head and no visualization. It makes me wonder what such a person would write, themselves. How could they put together a scene?

stevenhuang2y ago

I'm a voracious reader (sci-fi) and I would also put it best as processing what I read as facts.

I've never been able to daydream or create worlds in my minds eye such that I get lost in them (which is something I hear people who daydream are able to do).

I think part of this is why I've always found creative writing to be difficult. For example in grade school I was certain I was among the few that read the most, yet for in class creative writing assignments I am often among the last to finish. I've always had the suspicion I'm not as creative as others for this reason.

That said I do believe that I'm very analytical, and so I found no untoward difficulty in persuasive essays, technical write-ups, etc.

Fraterkes2y ago

Out of curiosity, how do you keep track of the spaces the characters move in if you can't visualise anything?

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scatters2y ago

We write the same way an LLM does; by putting together words in the order that convention dictates. It's less of a chore if we can make them mean something by metaphor or allusion; in your example, the author clearly intends to signify something by the glistening of the raindrops, the redness of the leaves and the color of the grass, else why mention it?

moffkalast2y ago

> Were they actually imagining more but were unable to put it into words? Were they underestimating the vividness of what they were imagining? Or were they accurately describing what was in their minds?

I suppose some people may imagine a "default apple" when given the prompt which would already have some parameters while others might try recreating an arbitrary apple from scratch in their head which wouldn't be very detailed. The object is only as detailed as you make it in your mind, which might take some creativity if you're not thinking about a specific one you've seen before. If you don't give it colour or smell it won't have any, it'll just be like a generic shape.

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