Ok, so you artistic types out there - and actually, well, anyone. I just learned about something really fascinating... And Iâm trying to figure out if I have it.
I just watched a video on aphantasia - the inability to form images in your mindâs eye.
This can be a hard concept to wrap your head around, so I will step through Face Blindness (prosopagnosia) first, because the research there has helped to clarify what that means.
So, first of all, the human brain is literally hard wired to recognize faces. Infants will start longer at two circles over a line (aka a smilie) than a random non-face type image. The Wiki article on face perception goes into why this is good and important for human beings.
Except - some people DONâT. You scan their brain while looking at images, and the little âcheat codeâ area that lights up for everyone else when you see a face remains as blank for them as when neurotypical individuals look at a pile of rocks.
Look at all those rocks. While youâre looking at them, you can see theyâre all different: different shapes, different shades, many have those cool and unique patterns of white lines.
Now, could you MEMORIZE those rocks? Recognize rock A after a week and know itâs different than rock B?
For most people, no, because we donât have a ârock pattern cheat codeâ part of the brain the way we do for faces in neurotypical individuals.
But someone with prosopagnosia? They donât realize they have to work harder at memorizing faces than everyone else. Working without the cheat codes is normal for them, and they assume everyone else does it the same way.
The best description Iâve ever heard was from an autobiography of a woman with face blindness regarding celebrity magazines: âall the actresses try so hard to look the same.â
Because that makes sense, why she canât tell the difference between these famous faces, and not that sheâs neuroatypical.
Which brings me back to aphantasia and myself. Iâve described myself as only ever being able to âseeâ part of anbimage in my head at a time. Like, I can remember Megamindâs face, and Metro Manâs face, and expressions they have in the movie. I âseeâ them.
But I canât âseeâ their faces as clearly when I âlookâ at a full body image. I canât hild that many pieces of information clearly.
And I donât - see? I just - remember, build new images patchwork from the collection of visual images I have stored in my memory.
And I always just assumed thatâs how everyone âsawâ in their head, just better than I did.
Gah, ramble, but now I really am curious. Am I just a weak but otherwise normal visualizer, or am I really doing it different than neurotypical individuals???
Notes: I do âvisualizationâ exercises all the time, I like meditation alot and do it often. Sometimes in those states I can âseeâ things more clearly, more like when I dream. And yes, I dream visually, although when I try to remember the visuals itâs piecemeal like normal. My typical visualizations Iâve always described as âkinestheticâ which isnât really accurate but the closest word I have found for the jumble of sensations and (primarily) emotions that form my mindâs âeye.â
