{"id":21893,"date":"2016-05-27T18:39:44","date_gmt":"2016-05-28T01:39:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=21893"},"modified":"2016-05-27T18:39:44","modified_gmt":"2016-05-28T01:39:44","slug":"aphantasia-a-life-without-mental-images","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=21893","title":{"rendered":"Aphantasia: A life without mental images"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Asterios-Polyp\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Aphantasia: A life without mental images – BBC News<\/a><\/p>\n

Close your eyes and imagine walking along a sandy beach and then gazing over the horizon as the Sun rises. How clear is the image that springs to mind?<\/p>\n

Most people can readily conjure images inside their head – known as their mind’s eye.<\/p>\n

But this year scientists have described a condition, aphantasia, in which some people are unable to visualise mental images. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The BBC article includes a simple quiz to see how your ability to mentally visualize images ranks. I was in the bottom 5% – I have basically next to no mental imagery of that sort. <\/p>\n

Honestly, before reading this article, I didn’t realize that other people DID have this sort of mental imagery. I mean, I heard other people say they were “picturing it in their mind,” but I always assumed that was a metaphor<\/em>. So that’s a little bit freaky, to me.<\/p>\n

It can go the other way, too. On Tumblr,<\/a> “Rabbit Cube” wrote:<\/p>\n

I think so visually that it took me forever to realize that other people sometimes thought in words. For the longest time I thought that inner monologues and thought balloons in comics were merely a narrative convenience, not an indication of how (some) people actually think.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I brought this up on social media, and a few people have been surprised that I don’t picture things in my mind, since I’m a cartoonist. <\/p>\n

I can imagine things without picturing them – I can imagine the idea <\/em>of someone running very hard with sweat pouring from them without having to see a picture of that in my mind. I can imagine that contained in a very narrow panel border shape that conveys tension and speed, again without actually seeing the picture of that in my mind.<\/p>\n

To convert that into specific images I can see, I generally need to actually sketch the picture out. (Although the sketch might not be anything more than a stick figure). And sometimes, when I actually sketch an idea so I can see it visually, it’ll turn out that it doesn’t work. <\/p>\n

Thanks to Mandolin for the link.<\/p>\n

[Illustration: Excerpt from Asterios Polyp<\/a> by David Mazzucchelli.]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aphantasia: A life without mental images – BBC News Close your eyes and imagine walking along a sandy beach and then gazing over the horizon as the Sun rises. How clear is the image that springs to mind? Most people … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mind-blowing-miscellania-and-other-neat-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21893"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21895,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21893\/revisions\/21895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}