When asked to "picture" something, for some reason they assumed people would actually see a faint version of it in their visual field - and because they couldnt "see" it, they believed they had aphantasia.
e.g. when asked to visualize a clown sitting in a chair in front of them, they expected people to actually (however faintly) see a clown in a chair in front of them. To me that is hallucination, not visualization.
Of course, it could be ME misinterpreting it, and people do actually "see" things they visualize, and I have aphantasia.... How would I know? What is the experience for you? (if you dont mind me asking)
For example, a simple "Close your eyes and imagine a cat. [pause] What color is it? What's it doing?" question results in:
Most people: Orange. A bit scruffy. It's playing with a ball of yarn beneath a chair. I can clearly see it jumping around.
Fewer, but still common: It's orange. It's just suspended in nothingness in a fixed position.
Me: What do you mean color? You didn't tell me I need to give it a color!
Imagining something just summons the concept of that thing to your mind. You can attach properties to the cat and you can analyze it, but unless a given property has been attached in particular, it's simply null.
On the other hand, the people at the far end of the visual spectrum draw a complete blank when you say "Imagine an un-cat leaping over the chair".
I also have an extremely poor memory. For me, the (very few) memories I have are like a very blurry monochrome photo. I have always believed this is anxiety related (I have chronic anxiety and ADHD).
FYI, I have just done this cat question on my partner, her cat was grey and was sleeping... I asked her if that cat had a colour before I asked her what colour it was, and she said it did. For me, that cat would have no colour. Its possible I would then add a colour when asked the colour.
I've since heard of a second instance of the generalization phenomena - Some people wipe their butt while still sitting, some stand up. Unscientific polling showed that the split is roughly 50/50 in a population. But no one had any idea of the other groups existence at all.
Im not sure if I could fit my hand in the hole the same time as sitting down. Definitely a squat guy, or generally a one cheek pivot, as im pretty lazy :D
Every time I see that stated, I only ever see sitters being surprised that standers exist, not the other way around.
They might exist, but either they're are much smaller minority, or it has a strange correlation with how they use the internet.
I think there's also an element of things being "faint" in your mind's eye. For example, there's a McDonald's and horse racetrack that I drive by every day on my way to work. I can sort of visualise some constituent parts, but there are no details and there's no overall picture.
I also don't know how much of the visualisation is just me recalling (in abstract) what is there, since I am very familiar with it.
That would mean you don't have the condition right ?
I can visualize a ball, but I only make it a tennis ball after I'm asked to do it. Similarly, my car doesn't have a color until it must. I can make the scene really robust as I build on it, but won't unless I need to. Almost like a 3D graphic renderer.
IMO, that's probably a more conceptual way of looking at it. You are able to decouple your concept of a cat from the color and tendencies, and can build it up from more basic primitives than others can.
> "Imagine an un-cat leaping over the chair"
Can you elaborate on what you see here ? Sounds really interesting.
I did more of a "scene + cat-ness everywhere (deep dream style) - cat in the particular position". So the background had cat hair all over it, and then a cat shaped grey/transparent contour jumped on top of the table.
But IF asked to visualize something floating in front of me, I can do that too. It cannot ever be mistaken for the real thing, it's not a ghostly image or a hallucination, but I can sort of pretend something imaginary is sitting next to me and I can, through voluntary effort, "see" it.
Whenever I want to draw something -- or build a scale model -- I always try to visualize the end result first.
Is it fair to call it a disorder? It seems like people that have it are fully functional. To me, it looks more like a difference in brain processing styles.
I can't avoid to think what other differences are we missing, just because we all assume that the other people process the world like us.