Hacker News Reader

Comment by martindbp | Hacker News Reader

Is this the norm? I can have an internal dialog but I mainly visualize things, I'd say that 90% of my thinking is visual. I'm not even sure how you'd solve, for instance, an algorithmic problem without visualizing the process. Maybe this is why I feel like a slower thinker than most peers, answers just seem to come them while I have to visualize things first. In college I'd generally take longer than the fast smart people but end up doing slightly better in the end, which always puzzled me. I have terrible memory for facts though.

View on HN

The answer is that it is hugely variable between people!

Hurlburt has great research on this using Descriptive Experience Sampling.

Some people mainly use images, others mainly speech, others mainly emotion etc. And many more use a varied mix.

Also the way each modality of thought is used is hugely variable - exactly what people see and with what quality or how precisely they feel emotional in their body etc.

To me it explains a huge amount of how different people are good at different skills.

I've a podcast on this topic ("Imagine an apple") if you're interested in more.

Thanks, I'll check it out, it's a fascinating topic and can probably teach us how we can make AI think (or how it does think).

You can visualize an algorithm?? Makes no sense to me. To me, when thinking about an algorithm, it's more navigating the data flow. Following connections between concepts. No words nor visuals.

I think I navigate the data flow visually. Or semi-visually. In my mind's eye, usually, but sometimes I put it on paper.

Yeah, most things lend themselves to visualizing, but even things that don't I have to visualize something, the answer doesn't just come to me unless I have something to look at if that makes sense.

Let me ask, when you decide what to eat for dinner, how do you arrive at the answer? I visualize what's in the fridge, what I can cook with the ingredients. Or if I want to eat out I visualize our neighborhood like Google Maps and look around at the different options.

When I'm solving an algorithmic problem I visualize the data, spatially if possible otherwise just as text, lists or vectors. It's like I'm using a notebook but it's faster and a bit more fuzzy.

It's not 100% for me but just the vast majority. I do visualise things that are almost purely spacial like geometry or recalling how to do an exercise. Though from what I've read, even this is news to some people who express surprise that "mind's eye" is a little more literal than they assumed. I'm pretty good at remembering facts and trivia but not so much actual life experiences, not sure if that's related.

I can visualize algorithms but I have to do so deliberately. Unlike the parent poster I don't always think in internal monologues either.

Sometimes it's a keyword/concept thing where I'll think of the main items and I get a feeling that I know how to fill in the blanks. I haven't actually visualized or verbalized what would fill those blanks though (and sometimes the feeling is wrong).

I think pretty much all of the senses can be used to do some form of thinking. I can imagine songs in my head, touch, feelings etc. Rarely are they useful for problem solving though, but some of these are nice for falling asleep in unknown environments.

Oh and then there's the thinking where nothing seems to happen. I stare at a piece of paper and after a while I know what to do next. How did I arrive at that conclusion? I don't know, but it definitely wasn't verbal, visual, aural or anything else. This tends to not solve complex problems like math, but it basically tells me what I should do to try to solve it (usually verbal or visual).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com