> Do people actually see stuff when they imagine things?
Apparently so. That's how my wife describes it. She scores an easy 6 on the "star test" - https://www.reddit.com/r/Aphantasia/comments/aioyga/simple_a.... Myself, I normally score 2-3 on it.
Apparently so. That's how my wife describes it. She scores an easy 6 on the "star test" - https://www.reddit.com/r/Aphantasia/comments/aioyga/simple_a.... Myself, I normally score 2-3 on it.
> Close your eyes and imagine a red star. Which image do you see? I see 2, but most people see 5 or 6.
It seems some people are (a) reporting what they actually see with their eyes closed, i.e. mostly nothing, a 1. Others are (b) imagining a star and reporting what that looks like in their mind's eye.
I didn't think that aphantasia meant the (a)-type literal seeing, so I just read up on it again, and the descriptions seem to refer to (b)-type imagining/visualization, like imagining a giraffe then being able to describe what you see in your imagination. It doesn't mean you can actually see it, with open or closed eyes.
It seems this test convinced a lot of people they have aphantasia, as it seems most people are a 1. And I suspect most of those who say 6 are talking about what they imagine, not what they physically see. I'm a 1 in sense (a), but in sense (b) a 6, well, I can imagine any kind of red star, like most people, I believe.
I am 2-3 on (a) and (b). My wife is 6 on (a) and (b). She reports that she does actually see stuff as if it was there. Conversely, I only barely see the things, and at the same time, I can barely "imagine" them in the sense of (b). E.g. my process of "imagining a star and reporting what that looks like" consists of keeping the words, the tokens "red star", repeated by my inner voice on a loop, and then exploring the graph of associations. It's a non-visual process. I don't "see" it, but I can tell you all about it because I know how stars look like and what properties they have.