Can Crows Make Mental Pictures of Tools?

nytimes.com

41 pointscoldseattle3 comments

“Could they look at a tool and just based on mental image of the tool — can they recreate that tool design?” Dr. Taylor said. “That’s what we set out to test, and that’s what our results show.”

I can't. I'm unable to visualize things (I believe I have Aphantasia) so when I create something, I have to do it a piece at a time and see if it satisfies the requirements of each step. Makes for a lot of trial-and-error.

Fun anecdata: I have ADHD, and aphantasia.

Regular stimulant-class drugs make the aphantasia a bit less—I become able to picture things for about a second at a time before the image “flickers away.”

The tyrosine-hydroxylase promoter Bromantane (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromantane) completely fixes the aphantasia for as long as I’m taking it.

(As well, the equivalent happens for music—I go from being unable to improvise even two notes of pleasant melody, to being able to hum decent songs, and also “rap”—i.e. improvise poetry with correct rhyme and meter. All in a flow state where I’m not really providing any conscious executive control to direct the results, only to constrain them.)

Of course we can

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