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Comment by _fs | Hacker News Reader

Hmm, I can barely visualize an apple. Like, I see the shape on a 2d plane in pieces. I noticed when I read your comment and tried to visualize the apple, instead, in my mind, I get an inner monologue telling me what an apple is. The color, the shape, the size. But I don't really get a visual.

Now, ask me to think about a song, and I can create the entire auditory experience of the song. Various instruments, in time. I can manipulate the songs key, slow it down, etc. But there are no visuals accompanying this.

I have honestly never really even thought about this. Can people really visualize faces and complex items in life like color and resolution?

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> Can people really visualize faces and complex items in life like color and resolution?

for my organic chemistry class, it was almost a requirement, so that you could describe the interactions two molecules would have based on their physical properties, and determine the end result

curious, if you were asked not just to simply visualize something, but determine an outcome based on physical properties of objects, how does that process play out in your mind?

for example, if I were shown a square-shaped hole, and without being shown a cube, I was asked if a typical cube would fit through that hole based on shape and not size, in my mind i would picture one face of a cube and try to match it up with the shape i can see to determine 'yes it fits'

Not the GP, but I'm also aphantasic. To me, the square hole question is more like "cubes have square faces, therefore yes". Seems to me like touch typing (knowing shapes) vs. hunt-and-peck typing (search for shape, align).

For the "what happens if" question, it's similar: "based on facts from experience, what happens next?". I lack the requisite knowledge base for ochem specifically, but in software, I'm usually able to come up with "have you considered input X" when reading code that just isn't handled well. I don't have any visual reference when thinking about such things; I just "feel" that there's an unhandled edge case. There's nothing concrete that visually represents input values, but I guess a marble maze could work for folks though.

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