[HN Gopher] Deep Aphantasia: a visual brain with minimal influen...
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       Deep Aphantasia: a visual brain with minimal influence from priors?
        
       Author : negativelambda
       Score  : 50 points
       Date   : 2024-04-06 12:26 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.frontiersin.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.frontiersin.org)
        
       | markx2 wrote:
       | Some months, maybe a couple of years ago I realised that I have
       | no "mind's eye". For example I know I have grandchildren but I
       | cannot visualise them. I cannot visualise a neighbour, or food,
       | or a location. That this happens is odd but I can live with it.
       | 
       | More recently I was thinking about gaming, and more specifically
       | Prison Architect, Dwarf Fortress, Factorio, City Skylines (all of
       | which I own but get nowhere with) and other games where you play,
       | you fail, you plan, you repeat. Even Minecraft.
       | 
       | Someone else - I presume - plays, fails, learns, repeats and so
       | gain a step toward mastery of the game. (I accept from reading
       | that mastery of DF isn't happening soon). I presume that players
       | visualise mistakes and visualise workrounds. I cannot do that, I
       | do not know how.
       | 
       | I have thousands of hours in gaming but I cannot recall them
       | visually, so I respond in-game to what is happening in-game. That
       | may not make sense. There will be some learning but in a non-
       | visual way.
       | 
       | Is this aphantasia? I have no idea and I'm not about to be
       | diagnosed.
       | 
       | I do have vivid and lucid dreaming but ask me to close my eyes
       | and visualise an apple and nope, doesn't happen.
        
         | zimpenfish wrote:
         | > ask me to close my eyes and visualise an apple and nope,
         | doesn't happen.
         | 
         | That's definitely aphantasia as I understand (and suffer from)
         | it.
         | 
         | I've never really considered the "visual learning from failure"
         | aspect of it. I know that in, e.g., Minecraft, I have
         | tremendous trouble with building things because I can't
         | visualise them beforehand and thus things get hodgepodged into
         | these hideous homunculi of buildings or redstone contraptions.
        
         | thinkingemote wrote:
         | One way that scientists test is to use modality agnostic
         | language. For example something like "imagine going to a store
         | to shop for a new sofa. You find one and imagine where it would
         | go in your room."
         | 
         | Then you change or introduce things "make the sofa 50% smaller"
         | then a bit more "change the colour of it to deep yellow" etc
         | 
         | Or imagine getting on a bus and their is only one seat left.
        
         | dynisor wrote:
         | I am definitely not a doctor. However, I have a friend
         | diagnosed with aphantasia and this is almost exactly how she
         | described it to me.
        
         | lairv wrote:
         | Not exactly the same but recently I realised that I can
         | visualize the face of most of the people I know, my parents, my
         | family, my friends, however I'm unable to visualize my own face
        
         | Buttons840 wrote:
         | Can you draw things without a reference? What happens if you
         | try to play pictionary?
        
           | markx2 wrote:
           | If I cannot see - with my eyes there and then - a scribble
           | happens.
           | 
           | To sort of expand: I'm old enough that a diagnosis makes zero
           | difference. But it does explain so much.
           | 
           | When misophonia became a thing it explained so much of my
           | reactions to certain noises, that I was not alone.
           | 
           | Just knowing that others are experiencing the same removes
           | some of that aloneness.
        
           | khazhoux wrote:
           | I'm aphantasic but I've drawn my whole life. In Pictionary I
           | show off and draw _exactly_ the thing being described,
           | meanwhile others struggle with their stick figures. It 's
           | hilarious.
           | 
           | So on the one hand I can draw an excellent random generic man
           | or a generic face. If you pose for me I'll do an uncanny
           | portrait. But I can't draw my wife of 30 years -- I can't
           | even see her in my mind. I can't draw an actor I've seen 200
           | times unless I were to sit with photographs and ingrain their
           | face by deliberate practice
        
         | AQuantized wrote:
         | Using Prison Architect as an example, when playing can you
         | 'remember' the dimensions of the different rooms you've built?
         | Or would you have to zoom out to plan an extension of your
         | prison? It definitely sounds like aphantasia.
        
       | orta wrote:
       | Cool! I think I'd be classed as deep Aphant like Loren (one of
       | the paper's authors) but I also have an internal monologue.
        
       | japoco wrote:
       | I was pretty intrigued by Aphantasia a while ago, as I can't
       | picture anything at all with my eyes closed. Then I asked all my
       | friends and none of them could either, apparently. So I'm
       | wondering what "picturing" means in the definition of aphantasia?
       | With my eyes closed all I see is pitch black, but I can "imagine"
       | myself seeing a red apple even with my eyes open, I don't
       | actually see anything though.
        
         | t-3 wrote:
         | Actually seeing with your eyes would (I think) be a form of
         | synesthesia. Being able to imagine a red apple is "normal". Not
         | being able to imagine a red apple is aphantasia ("imagine" in
         | the sense of a "visual" imagination, not in the sense of being
         | able to conjecture the existence of an apple with particular
         | qualities).
        
           | dataflow wrote:
           | Does it follow that people with aphantasia (edit:
           | "aphantasics", per the article) would be unable to draw a
           | realistic-looking apple from scratch? If not, then how do
           | scientists show someone has aphantasia? Is it falsifiable?
        
             | t-3 wrote:
             | Not at all - you can still see the paper and know what an
             | apple is supposed to look like. Describing a face or
             | drawing a scene from memory is very hard though.
        
               | dataflow wrote:
               | That doesn't really make sense to me. What does it mean
               | to "know what an apple looks like" without being unable
               | to imagine it? How would that be any different from
               | knowing what a face looks like without being able to
               | imagine it? Do note I said _realistic_ apple [1], not
               | just a cartoonish drawing, so I don 't just mean "a
               | squished circle"...
               | 
               | [1] Example: https://drawpj.com/wp-
               | content/uploads/2018/05/hyperrealistic...
        
               | t-3 wrote:
               | Why would I have to visualize to know whether or not
               | something is an apple? I can recognize one on sight
               | without having to match it up with a visualization in my
               | head, so I can start from the right shape and add details
               | until it becomes an apple. No visualization required at
               | all. Obviously it's quicker and easier to use a model or
               | reference picture, but not required.
        
               | dataflow wrote:
               | I guess I don't see how that's be different from drawing
               | a face? Start with the right shape an add details until
               | it becomes a face?
        
               | t-3 wrote:
               | I can draw a generic face, but not a specific one unless
               | I have a model or picture. If I had to give a description
               | of someone, even family members or close friends, I would
               | be hopeless other than very basic things like relative
               | height, hair and skin color.
        
               | dataflow wrote:
               | That's so fascinating, thanks. Does aphantasia give you
               | any trouble in your daily life? Or does it end up being a
               | non-issue?
        
               | t-3 wrote:
               | It's a non-issue. I never even realized that it was a
               | thing until I several years ago I was listening to a
               | podcast that involved discussing mental monologues and
               | imagery and thinking "WTF are these people talking
               | about?!", and then doing some research. I had previously
               | always understood things like "mind's eye" and inner
               | voice/conscience as metaphors or some kind of mystical
               | superstition.
        
             | warp wrote:
             | Prof Joel Pearson has developed three distinct objective
             | tests to measure aphantasia. Here is a talk about it:
             | https://youtu.be/tA_4HNaKsS0
        
               | dataflow wrote:
               | Interesting, thanks. I'll have to watch it when I find
               | the chance.
        
             | Filligree wrote:
             | In addition to the other replies: No, aphantastics (nice
             | word!) aren't _unable_ to do it, much like almost anyone
             | can become amateur-level competent at almost anything if
             | they put in enough effort.
             | 
             | But it's a matter of talent, and you're missing a big
             | component. That can be made up for in other ways, though I
             | think it'd be hard to reach the peak.
        
         | Climato wrote:
         | I don't think you have it if you can imagine something.
         | 
         | I don't think it's meant to be in that dark space / visual eye
         | space.
        
         | klipt wrote:
         | Consider another sense, like hearing. Many people experience
         | "earworms" where a song gets stuck in their head and plays
         | repeatedly. They know it's not actually playing since there's
         | no "external" sound but they can hear it "internally".
         | 
         | "Picturing" something in your head is the same, just with the
         | sense of vision instead of the sense of hearing.
        
         | awinter-py wrote:
         | ask this questionnaire to a range of people, including some
         | visual artists / designers:
         | 
         | close your eyes, think of a family member, who is it, where are
         | they, what are they wearing, can you see details about the
         | clothing, can you see details in the background, is there
         | motion, if you open your eyes can you still see it
         | 
         | there will be some very strong yeses in there if you sample
         | people in visual professions
        
           | mdswanson wrote:
           | Even designers who can visualize report different
           | representations and experiences:
           | https://aphantasia.com/article/strategies/visualizing-the-
           | in...
        
         | mbivert wrote:
         | It's definitely not a black and white thing but a (flexible)
         | scale: a noticeable variation of intensity can be felt when
         | practicing an activity demanding an intense visual focus on a
         | specific object (e.g. painting): an stronger-than-usual visual
         | image can be recalled effortlessly, at least during a few days.
        
         | mdswanson wrote:
         | The problem is asking people to close their eyes. Most
         | visualizers don't need to close their eyes to visualize, and
         | many state that they can visualize even better with them open.
         | Everyone sees some form of black/Eigengrau when they close
         | their eyes.
        
         | AQuantized wrote:
         | I don't think it has anything to do with your eyes being
         | open/closed, or even to do with your eyes at all, unless it's
         | describing something different to what I assume. It's about
         | _mental_ images and visualization, not your field of vision
         | itself.
        
       | asveikau wrote:
       | I slowly realized I have aphantasia by reading an HN comment
       | about it last December. That day I started asking my daughter
       | questions about visualizing things and daydreams and she ended up
       | giving me a perfect description of aphantasia with minimal
       | prompting. It's very interesting to have gone through life not
       | realizing I have this difference. A few people I asked the same
       | questions of who do not seem to have aphantasia thought the topic
       | was a little crazy, as if it's weird to perceive this way.
       | 
       | I tend to process a lot of things through sound, and go around
       | the world recognizing people by voice or unwillingly trying to
       | place people's accents when they talk. I think it might be
       | related somehow.
        
         | mbivert wrote:
         | I remember reading once somewhere on the Internet someone
         | baffled to learn that people weren't in control when dreaming.
         | It's amusing how inner-experiences can unknowingly be so wildly
         | different from person to person.
        
       | smokel wrote:
       | Why does aphantasia come up so often on Hacker News?
       | 
       | I find it mildly annoying that there is nearly no scientific
       | backing to it, and that we are having the same discussions over
       | and over again.
       | 
       | It seems very similar to the RSI craze, back in the 1990s, when
       | almost everyone who went near a computer couldn't work for months
       | because they thought they had it. And then somehow the condition
       | vanished.
       | 
       | Yes, some people actually have RSI, and some people probably have
       | severe aphantasia and actually suffer from it. But I'm afraid
       | there is a large group of people who think they are missing out
       | on brain candy that simply doesn't exist, (edit: or which they
       | may have not successfully developed access to yet.)
        
         | smrq wrote:
         | I have a conjecture that aphantasia may be overrepresented in
         | software disciplines. It seems sensible to me that a field
         | which is almost wholly abstract would select a higher
         | proportion of aphantasic people than average, as it would be of
         | no hindrance. (I would expect the same from mathematics and
         | maybe some sciences, but I'm not a member of any such community
         | so I wouldn't know firsthand.)
         | 
         | Again, just a conjecture, but it would help to explain why we
         | seem to come out of the woodwork in such circles so regularly.
        
           | mdswanson wrote:
           | There's research that people with aphantasia are over-
           | represented in STEM fields:
           | https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/people-with-aphantasia-
           | are...
        
             | smokel wrote:
             | Thanks for sharing that link.
             | 
             | It's risky business to infer anything from job preferences
             | though. Consider that (as far as I know) an extraordinarily
             | large proportion of professional programmers are _male_ --
             | obviously a cultural phenomenon. We certainly cannot infer
             | that a talent for programming is located on the
             | y-chromosome.
             | 
             | Edit after reading the paper associated with that link:
             | 
             |  _> Our aphantasic and hyperphantasic samples were
             | opportunistic, in the sense that our participants had
             | approached us spontaneously following publicity triggered
             | by our original publication_
             | 
             | This suggests that many of the participants actually read
             | scientific publications (or reporting thereof). That's an
             | obviously biased set of people who indeed are way more
             | likely to work in STEM (and have an abundance of time to
             | spend browsing the web), rather than as hairdressers.
        
         | ItsMonkk wrote:
         | It's interesting because it should be very easy to put a test
         | in action. Are there true capability differences between people
         | who think in different ways? Feynman[0] goes through a
         | particular version of such a test in his Ways of Thinking
         | series.
         | 
         | It should be trivial to write up a puzzle game such that, much
         | like those color blind tests where you need to find numbers,
         | will very quickly eliminate people who think in different ways
         | while being a piece of cake for others. And yet I don't think
         | I've ever encountered one.
         | 
         | Are there no capabilities that can not be overcome? Would that
         | puzzle game just be terrible entertainment? Why doesn't it
         | exist?
         | 
         | [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbwLkuxORdY
        
       | mdswanson wrote:
       | A good introduction to aphantasia (I'm a total, multi-sensory
       | aphant): https://aphantasia.com/guide/
        
       | kneel wrote:
       | The mass recoginition of Aphantasia and the rise of screentime
       | seems somewhat correlated. They might be reinforcing one another,
       | multiple avenues of cognition could be warping in unprecedented
       | ways.
       | 
       | Highly industrialized societies have large populations that can
       | experience, interact and survive their entire lives almost solely
       | through screens. This seems to be an unknowing experiment we're
       | performing on brains.
        
         | pavlov wrote:
         | Isn't this essentially the same concern that Socrates had about
         | writing according to Plato:
         | 
         | "... for this discovery of [letters, writing] will create
         | forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use
         | their memories; they will trust to the external written
         | characters and not remember of themselves."
        
         | light_hue_1 wrote:
         | Nope. Not even remotely.
         | 
         | Now that we know what we're looking for we've found evidence
         | from the 1800s for aphantasia. And at rates that look
         | consistent with modern rates. Galton famously asked about this
         | but almost no one follows up on it seriously.
        
         | ben_w wrote:
         | Screen time correlates with:
         | 
         | * Average milk produced per cow in the US:
         | https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious/correlation/6254_global-...
         | 
         | * Visitors to Universal Orlando's Islands of Adventure:
         | https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious/correlation/10880_global...
         | 
         | * Popularity of the first name Graham:
         | https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious/correlation/13927_popula...
         | 
         | Even if there was an actual correlation with aphantasia and not
         | just a case of "we weren't looking before", there's a lot of
         | non-causal correlations in this world.
        
       | xpl wrote:
       | There is a sort of confusion when people read about aphantasia,
       | they tend to imagine (pun intended) that most people have vivid
       | pictures when they close their eyes, coming to conclusion that
       | they must have aphantasia, because it isn't what happens with
       | them.
       | 
       | But normally, you won't _actually see_ anything with your eyes
       | closed, otherwise it would be a  "closed-eye visual" (CEV) which
       | is you only experience when you do hallucinogenic drugs (shrooms,
       | LSD)!
       | 
       | Nonetheless, most people can "visualize" when they imagine
       | objects, people's faces, places from memory -- but it is totally
       | not like AR (i.e. actually overlaying images on top of light
       | perception). Nope, it feels more like you see it with some
       | mysterious "mind's eye", disconnected from real eyes. It is very
       | faint and tacit, like you're perceiving a very abstract high-
       | level representation of an object, instead of seeing actual
       | "pixels". And it doesn't require having eyes closed, people often
       | can do it as easily with their eyes open, as it doesn't interfere
       | with the normal vision at all.
        
         | temp0826 wrote:
         | IME with ayahuasca (but probably other psychedelics too), there
         | are different types of visions you might have. I've clearly
         | experienced the typical CEVs but also have stark images coming
         | through my mind's eye (much more akin to normal life
         | visualizing). My tolerance is pretty high, it takes me an
         | absurd amount to have the full-on technicolor visions, but I do
         | seem to get a lot of color through my mind's eye still (usually
         | related to the master plant diets and their spirits). There is
         | another type of vision I've experienced that is somewhere in
         | between that I have a lot of trouble describing, it pops out in
         | a different way on top of normal vision.
        
         | ergonaught wrote:
         | Most of my family actually see things. One or two of them would
         | qualify as hyperphantasiac, presumably.
         | 
         | I see absolutely nothing. When you say "it" is "faint and
         | tacit", you are describing an "it" that simply does not exist
         | for me. I see a whole lot of people who don't have aphantasia
         | get hung up on this. They keep describing an "it" without
         | accepting that for some of us there is no "it".
         | 
         | The way I've usually "tested" it among friends/family/clients
         | is to just ask them to imagine that there is a ball, on a
         | table, and someone pushes the ball so that it rolls off the
         | table onto the floor.
         | 
         | I then ask them to answer, from memory, simple things like what
         | color was the ball, what kind of table was it, what material
         | was the floor, was there a sound when the ball fell to the
         | floor, what else happened, etc.
         | 
         | No one I've known with aphantasia (including myself) has
         | answers for any such questions when asked to recall what they
         | just imagined, but almost all can answer such questions "while
         | imagining".
        
           | xpl wrote:
           | It is an interesting test (I tried it once I read your
           | sentence). Turns out I can imagine a ball rolling off a table
           | without detailing the imaginary scene to have a specific
           | material, texture or sound (and if I wasn't specifically
           | asked, I won't likely picture it).
           | 
           | My imaginary scene clearly had some "spatial sense" though --
           | I saw (but more like "felt") the flat surface of the table,
           | the edges of it, how it is positioned relative to myself, the
           | roundness of the ball rolling, and how it falls off.
        
           | khazhoux wrote:
           | > The way I've usually "tested" it among
           | friends/family/clients is to just ask them to imagine that
           | there is a ball, on a table, and someone pushes the ball so
           | that it rolls off the table onto the floor.
           | 
           | Note that it's possible to visualize _motion_ of an object
           | without visualizing the object itself. This is me. I can 't
           | hold any imagery in my head, but I can easily imagine the
           | _movement_ of a kickflip or a pirouette, or I can see the
           | _bouncing_ of three balls without seeing the balls
           | themselves.
        
             | y1n0 wrote:
             | > I can see the bouncing of three balls without seeing the
             | balls themselves.
             | 
             | I know that we can't get inside each other's heads to truly
             | understand their perception (yet), so I feel like these
             | conversations can't possibly go anywhere, but I feel
             | compelled to say that, to me, what you are saying makes no
             | sense whatsoever.
             | 
             | I'm not denying your experience. I'm just saying I can't
             | begin to comprehend it.
        
               | LouisSayers wrote:
               | I resonate with their description of it, the way I'd
               | describe it is something like:
               | 
               | Close your eyes and imagine the month March (just the
               | idea of the month). Walk forward 2 months.
               | 
               | That's what a ball rolling off a table is like for some
               | of us.
        
               | khazhoux wrote:
               | Yup!
               | 
               | I can describe it as: I see the motion vectors but not
               | the objects. Imagine a dancer in a fog, you don't see the
               | dancer but see their imprint as they move...
        
           | a_cardboard_box wrote:
           | I can visualize the ball without color, so while having
           | aphantasia implies no color, the converse is not true. It's
           | sort of like an autostereogram, but with only the depth
           | effect and no color at all.
        
             | joquarky wrote:
             | That is an excellent way to describe the qualia of abstract
             | visual perception.
             | 
             | I wonder if people with aphantasia have trouble with them.
        
               | ben_w wrote:
               | FWIW, @a_cardboard_box's description doesn't sound like
               | anything I personally experience.
               | 
               | Not that we should expect immediate agreement on any of
               | these things: words can only gain meaning by shared
               | experience, and it's _really hard_ to share the
               | experiences that are confined to the inside our own
               | skulls.
        
             | t-3 wrote:
             | Aphantasia doesn't lack color, it lacks a place to put the
             | color and therefore color has no relevance other than
             | descriptive. The ball is just an imaginary object, like an
             | uninitialized variable. I can imagine that one exists, I
             | can imagine that it would have traits like red or blue, big
             | or small, bouncy or not, but I don't visualize it, and
             | those fields need to be filled in one-by-one, they aren't
             | defaulted when I imagine a ball, and nothing changes other
             | than the description if I change them. A ball rolling off a
             | table is more like the lead into a physics question to me
             | than an exercise in imagination.
        
             | ben_w wrote:
             | > I can visualize the ball without color
             | 
             | Right now I can only visualise with a colour... unless
             | "transparent" counts as "without". But even then, there's a
             | full-colour environment for the transparency to be
             | meaningful, and it can't be total transparency because then
             | it isn't present. Even if I imagine a wireframe grid to
             | show where it is, the grid has a colour.
        
         | saberience wrote:
         | I actually experience CEVs easily without any drugs at all,
         | something that's happened all my life. I can even influence it
         | to some extent. IE if I close my eyes and focus I can create
         | more and more intense closed eye visuals without falling
         | asleep. When I was a child I used to do this for fun when I was
         | bored.
         | 
         | So yeah, it's definitely not a hard and fast rule about CEVs.
        
           | gryn wrote:
           | I used to when I was younger, these day I seems to have lost
           | that ability even my dreams are not vivid and I rarely have a
           | dream (that I remember)
        
           | ben_w wrote:
           | I've had the audio equivalent of that at least once, and _I
           | think_ (can 't prove it) a few other times. But it was scary
           | so I never tried again.
           | 
           | I suspect I had the visual once, thanks to one time as a
           | teenager I tried a magic spell and the explanation of "I'm
           | capable of self-hypnosis" is much more plausible than the
           | spell having had even the slightest effect.
           | 
           | I can easily create intense overrides for sensory experience
           | whenever I like for my sense of which way down is, and mild
           | overrides for the various kinds of touch.
        
             | JoeyJoJoJr wrote:
             | This might seem like a weird question, but have you ever
             | had distortions in your sense of the size of features of
             | your face? I remember a very strange feeling as a child
             | about my sense of scale when I was dreaming or asleep.
             | Feeling like I was minuscule while in the presence of
             | something very big. Later in adult life I found I distort
             | my sensory perception of my facial features, ie make my
             | lips or cheeks feel gigantic, by pressing a very particular
             | part of my face into the pillow at the correct angle. This
             | sensation seemed to feel similar to one I experienced as a
             | child.
             | 
             | I also have or have had the ability to do other sensory
             | overrides like distorting my sense of physical space, ie
             | warp the bounds of my room while I stare at ceiling in bed.
             | It's not really a visual thing, but it makes me think of
             | the spoon bending scene in the matrix.
        
               | ben_w wrote:
               | Not my face specifically, but as a teenager my whole body
               | sometimes suddenly had a different sense of size.
               | 
               | For my body as a whole, I also don't have an inner sense
               | of a permanent body morphology that is "mine", so with
               | one exception[0] I can't even imagine what it's like to
               | be body-dysmorphic -- even if we lived in a world of
               | magic gender/species transformations that might happen
               | with no ill effect, if I woke up and found that had
               | happened, the only concern is if society can cope with
               | it, not one of my own inner psyche.
               | 
               | The one exception is forked tongue. That is a _sticky_
               | morphology to imagine, and one I don 't like at all. It's
               | also something a friend got done surgically. Good for
               | them, they seem to be enjoying it, it makes me go "aaaa".
               | 
               | [0] I assume there are limits beyond my imagination, but
               | my imagination does at least include tails, wings, gender
               | flipping, and I've listened to the We Are Legion (We Are
               | Bob) series.
        
           | kalaksi wrote:
           | Wait... You mean images of concrete things or just shapes or
           | something? I can do what you describe (always have and can
           | influence it) but it's just moving shapes with colors. Kind
           | of similar to those you get when you watch bright lights and
           | then go to a dark room. Isn't that common?
        
         | grugagag wrote:
         | People who have aphantasia know right away something must be
         | off for them when others enjoy things they don't, such overly
         | descriptive prose and so on. It is indeed very difficult to
         | compare one's internal experience with others' and that's one
         | reason aphantasia flies under the radar.
        
         | user8501 wrote:
         | I personally believe that people just answer the question "do
         | you visualize?" differently. I used to think I had "aphantasia"
         | but like you said, you see it without seeing it. If your eyes
         | and brain are functioning at all, your brain is perfectly
         | capable of creating colorful images. Just look around. Those
         | colors you see? That's your brain.
        
       | carver wrote:
       | It seems that Aphantasia does not globally bin into two groups,
       | since I don't fit in either.
       | 
       | By my rough count of Figure 2 tests, where Derek is at 0 to Loren
       | at 6 (ignoring F), I have about 3.5 atypical responses.
       | 
       | My experience with Figure 2:
       | 
       | A) I can flip between cone and weird triangle, saw the cone first
       | 
       | B) I see it as if someone placed identical cat stickers on the
       | drawing. I can intellectually understand the perspective, how the
       | upper-right one is supposed to be bigger, but don't experience it
       | that way.
       | 
       | C) I see that there is an implicit rectangle (to me it looks
       | slightly wider than tall). But the color doesn't "spread" to the
       | middle, it's just like 2A -- a boundary in the surrounding shapes
       | implicitly extends into the empty space to form a rectangle
       | shape.
       | 
       | D) It takes minimal, but non-zero effort to see the vase
       | 
       | E) It's trivial to flip between the two orientations of the cube
       | 
       | F) skipped
       | 
       | G) I don't understand what I'm looking for here. I see clouds,
       | sky, and a silhouette with a tree. Is there a face in it
       | somewhere? I can see the smiley face on
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia
        
         | CharlesW wrote:
         | > _It seems that Aphantasia does not globally bin into two
         | groups, since I don 't fit in either._
         | 
         | I believe you're correct, since I commonly see it presented as
         | a spectrum. https://aphantasia.com/study/vviq/
        
         | stoniejohnson wrote:
         | For G) I'm seeing something akin to the Moon falling in The
         | Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
         | 
         | Basically a face staring at the tree from above.
        
           | carver wrote:
           | Fascinating. Thanks for the clue. It's the most complete
           | blank for me of all the tests. I looked up the reference
           | image, but still cannot see it in figure 2G. I can't even
           | guess at where the eyes/nose/mouth are in the clouds.
        
             | stoniejohnson wrote:
             | The two dark splotches above the tree are the eyes. The
             | nose is to the right of the lower splotch, below the higher
             | splotch. The forehead to the left.
        
               | carver wrote:
               | Ahah! I see it now, thanks.
        
         | lukeinator42 wrote:
         | yeah, I think some of their example stimuli aren't the greatest
         | in that figure. There are definitely some better perspective
         | illusions online. I'm not sure if I really see the Neon
         | Spreading Illusion in C either; maybe it's spreading a bit,
         | haha.
        
         | christophilus wrote:
         | For whatever it's worth, I have Aphantasia, and share your
         | experiences exactly.
        
       | scotty79 wrote:
       | When I saw the title I thought it's about current state of AI.
       | That's what currently AI is missing. Imagination.
        
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