a minipost
Our minds are impressive at constructing imagery from words. Some of us like audio or printed books better than films because 'our minds are more visual than someone else's interpretation. So it came as a shock last year when my wife discovered she has a condition called aphantasia - the inability to construct a visual mental image. She thought references to any product of the minds eye was a figure of speech.
Sukie, being Sukie, dove in and started talking to researchers to learn about the condition. She's been part of a study that's determined about one to one and a half percent of the population has the condition (she clocks in with extreme aphantasia). She was particularly interested in positive benefits. Work so far suggests that a larger than expected population of scientists and engineers has the condition and work is underway looking at specific subfields. Sukie's very smart and creative - just in a way my mind can't imagine. Live living with an alien intelligence:-)
On the other side of the coin is hyperphantasia.. people who have intense visual theaters. Think about an apple in your hand and you see one there. Here's a nice piece on the subject. It's still very early work, but it raises some interesting questions. It may be that it's common in children, but most outgrow it. Children may have incredibly rich visual experiences... perhaps some make believe friends and things like ghosts are very real to some. And what about visions? There's a type that can represent positions -- is this part of court sense among elite soccer and basketball players?
I'm fairly visual - a book or audiobook almost always beats video or film for me. I took the admittedly blunt screen test and scored a bit below hyperphantasia on the continuum. Much of my thinking is abstract and visual, but I also have synesthesia which is less rare among mathematicians and physicists and often used, at least my flavor, for visual thinking. As with most things there's a bit of a downside. Having synesthesia means a couple of primary senses aren't orthogonal and I'm clumsy with sports that require a crisp separation. (you won't see a soccer player with synesthesia, but it's possible to have a weight lifter or rowing athlete - and trust me - I'm neither).
A bottom line is there's an enormous amount of neurodiversity in humanity. Every one of us is neuroatypical and it's our differences that make us special.
Comments