Ok, so you artistic types out there - and actually, well, anyone. I just learned about something really fascinating... And I’m trying to figure out if I have it.
I just watched a video on aphantasia - the inability to form images in your mind’s 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 DON’T. You scan their brain while looking at images, and the little “cheat code” 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 you’re looking at them, you can see they’re 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 it’s different than rock B?
For most people, no, because we don’t have a “rock pattern cheat code” part of the brain the way we do for faces in neurotypical individuals.
But someone with prosopagnosia? They don’t 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 I’ve ever heard was from an autobiography of a woman with face blindness regarding celebrity magazines: “all the actresses try so hard to look the same.”
Because that makes sense, why she can’t tell the difference between these famous faces, and not that she’s neuroatypical.
Which brings me back to aphantasia and myself. I’ve described myself as only ever being able to “see” part of anbimage in my head at a time. Like, I can remember Megamind’s face, and Metro Man’s face, and expressions they have in the movie. I “see” them.
But I can’t “see” their faces as clearly when I “look” at a full body image. I can’t hild that many pieces of information clearly.
And I don’t - 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 that’s how everyone “saw” 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 “visualization” exercises all the time, I like meditation alot and do it often. Sometimes in those states I can “see” things more clearly, more like when I dream. And yes, I dream visually, although when I try to remember the visuals it’s piecemeal like normal. My typical visualizations I’ve always described as “kinesthetic” which isn’t really accurate but the closest word I have found for the jumble of sensations and (primarily) emotions that form my mind’s “eye.”
