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I remember a talk (Ted maybe) about this, the theory being no one actually saw in pictures. As a demonstration the audience was asked to 'picture' a pirate with a peg leg; Once the picture was firmly in their mind they were then asked what colour of trousers/shirt the pirate was wearing. IF they were actually picturing the pirate it would be as simple as looking but most people didn't initially know and had to 'paint' in trousers/shirt and colour them before answering. Presumably if their mind actually held a picture they would have noticed the lack of trousers, or the lack of colour.

The talk went further to suggest that we don't actually 'see' with our eyes either, that our eyes and senses sends raw information, more like a description and the concepts are built in our mind, our experience might be like we're looking through our eyes and see a kind of picture of the world; But actually that is an illusion and our visual experience is more conceptually based which is why we are vulnerable to things like focus-blindness and other optical illusions where any kind of camera or picture taking device would not be.

Interestingly, the clear image we think we see with our eyes is very much an illusion (or rather: best effort reconstruction). The area our eyes can see sharp in high resolution is tiny, and our peripheral vision is mostly greyscale. Yet we think we see everything sharp in full color.

A similar thing may happen with mental images. You "see" the pirate, but unless you are looking at the trousers you can't tell their color (the same would work with a real life pirate in front of you)

If vision was actually made up of conceptually 'tagged' zones, then it would stand to reason that the hierarchical structure would only be developed within our 'focus', so that makes sense.

However, if i had a picture of a pirate, even a cursory glance would tell me if he had trousers on, even in the absence of hairy legs, censored, smudged, missing, i would notice it instantly and know it was missing before being asked.. but not if the image was in my mind, which means mental images don't act like actual images.

Elsewhere in the comments, a person suggests this exact test as a way of telling whether someone is aphantasic or not (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18805666). I also remain unconvinced since I seem to construct details such as these automatically. In other words, I do believe I see the colour of the shirt even before the question is asked (though not always).

Interestingly enough, as I followed along with your description of the demonstration, I too "painted in" the pirate. But when analyzing the rest of the scene, I realized that I had already created the background of the picture (ship, deck, sea, sky, rigging) and just had to look at those elements.

I wonder if the things like ship, deck, sea, sky, rigging have sub-hierarchical tags that are missing in the same way the shirt or trousers colors were missing from the concept of a pirate.

Ha! As I was reading that and pictured my pirate I was focusing on getting the drape of his pantaloons correct, so they hung over the top of the peg leg just so. When I went back to check color I realized it was like a coloring book image, thickly inked, but colorless.

Its such such an odd conclusion you've come to, some art tutorials are technical, therefore everyone doesn't have a mind's eye.

Anyway, the reason why people have to have drawing explained to them is because you have to translate 3d into 2d. Perspective is hard. And different parts of the brain can, essentially, fight about it. I suggest "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" for more info.

Well I haven't come to a conclusion. It's a hypothesis and rests upon more than just art tutorials. That was just an example that I was reflecting upon. In fact I would say that it doesn't rest at all upon that but rather that it was the starting point of my thoughts.

Well, it's incorrect. I recently realised that I have got aphantasia too (in my late 30s!) and have talked to a fair few people now about it, including artists.

I've also 'cured' it, using a technique called image streaming, which most aphantasia sufferers can do. Very few aphantasia sufferers are actually incapable of using their mind's eye. It's hard, but apparently it gets better with practice. I have "seen" a mind's eye picture. It took me about 6 days before I saw something. I've not kept it up as it was kinda cool, but I've got enough projects on at the moment without adding another.

An easy test for you is to ask a friend to picture a person. Now ask what colour their coat is. For me and you, we have to make that up, add a new property to the description that is essentially a list of properties we know a person should have. For them, they already know, as they've "seen" a picture of that person. They don't say that they'll add the purple coat property to the list of characteristics, they have already seen a picture where the person was wearing a purple coat.

It's not mass delusion, it's a real thing. Also, of interest, is that there are degrees of skill, so some people have extremely vivid mind's eye, and some people have fuzzy, or black and white, or not very detailed, etc. Here's a good starter article:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34039054

Did image streaming get you vivid images, or just images, period? I have dull and fleeting mental images, but they're there. Am wondering if I can expand them.

It's supposed to improve it. I don't really know, there's little scientific study on it, and some people claiming it's tosh vs some people saying it worked for them.

I did it for about a week before I started seeing images, so it does take some practice and some time. I found recording myself while I did it helped me to keep speaking, which helped the process. The first few days were frustratingly without any progress, but things did start to come together about day 6 or 7.

At the time I had a ridiculous amount of projects I was trying to do, realized I was overwhelmed and this was one of the ones I have parked until a later date. I will try it again as it did seem to be working.

So how were you doing it? I'd like to try.

> What if no-one had a mind's eye and Aphantasia is simply the lack of a delusion of a mind's eye.

The article proposes and falsifies a different hypothesis (that aphantasic subjects actually have a mind's eye but have the delusion that they don't) but the scientific argument is equally valid against this hypothesis. There is a difference in implicit behavior (in this case, priming during binocular rivalry), so the difference between aphantasic and non-aphantasic individuals seems to go deeper than metacognition.

It's interesting to talk! I believe I have rather the inverse of aphantasia — I "see" music as shapes and colors in my mind's eye. Also I think in pictures and relationships which I have to translate into words after the fact.

Whether it is a delusion or not is interesting. It might be moot. Maybe the judgement of realness or delusion is whether it is a competitive advantage or not. I have read that people with more synesthesia than me who can e.g. see numbers in colors, these people can pick out numbers faster off a page as they just go by the color. The color is processed in at a lower level, so it does come out as a competitive advantage.

For me, the visualization of everything is useful in interface design. Conversely I find it hard to talk to people sometimes due to the translation lag.

Re. the last paragraph, the delusion of a sensation vs. the sensation itself: Very interesting. The vision of the visual field in front of you, the vision of the surfaces and things and light in front of you, that vision does not exist there — it only exists inside your mind, physically inside your head. It is the delusion. Furthermore, the colors you might see do not exist at all.

>I "see" music as shapes and colors in my mind's eye

Could be a type of synesthesia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia#Chromesthesia

Just because you don't experience images doesn't mean nobody else does either. What is it with this thought process? Stop being so self-absorbed and closed- minded to other experiences. This is yet another thread where some people aren't willing to accept others have a different sense experience or behavior or whatever else and it's infuriating. Your experience doesn't invalidate the experience of somebody else, and using your experience as the basis for this doubt is incredibly self-centered.

I don't and I have never doubted in somebody not seeing images in their head when they reported that was the case, even if I do see these images, however clearly or unclearly. I don't doubt your aphantasia on the basis of my having a different sense experience.

He said,

> Thinking about that put me in mind of a curious possibility.

I think your harsh reaction to his thought experiment is entirely anti-intellectual.

I certainly did not expect a simple musing to evoke such an emotive response from multiple people.

This in itself is probably worthy of study (and I hope someone is already researching this area).

That people have different experiences is uncontroversial, but the depth of feeling that seems to come from a challenge to one's sense experience seems disproportionately severe.

Consider the Blue and Black/White and Gold dress and Laurel, Yanni. There were extremely heated arguments over these otherwise trivial curiosities.

> the depth of feeling that seems to come from a challenge to one's sense experience seems disproportionately severe.

Yes. Because the lack of empathy is appalling. Whether it's this topic or the dress color or whatever, there's a crazy amount of lack of empathy for other points of view and other ways of experiencing the world - thus, all the pointless arguments over something that is just down to equally valid ways the brain interprets the world. I never argued with anybody what the right color was, because that was never the point or the interesting part of the whole thing - the interesting idea was what part of the brain is responsible for the differences from person to person, and that people take for granted how they experience the world.

> I think your harsh reaction to his thought experiment is entirely anti-intellectual.

I don't think that's the case. A lot of racist or discriminating ideas can come from a place of "Well, my basis for thought is my own direct experience with no regard for how other people experience it or the validity of that experience." When his doubting of other peoples sense experience is solely based on his own sense experience without any interest in scientific basis or context, it's not an intellectual line of thought - it's just pseudo-intellectual rationalization for his own sense experience.

Again, I am not claiming this to be true, just that it would be an interesting possibility. I'm not sure why this deserves such an abusive response.

My experience does not invalidate yours, but neither does yours invalidate mine. My view is a minority perspective, you are discounting my _suggestion_ outright with a claim of being closed minded.

To be clear. I do not consider it to be wrong to have the experiences such as this or not. The notion that I have declared a majority of people broken is just plain false.

> you are discounting my _suggestion_ outright with a claim of being closed minded.

Ideas can be wrong, misguided, based on false assumptions, etc. The way I experience the world, or you experience the world, is not wrong - it's just how it is.

> just that it would be an interesting possibility.

This interesting possibility is based on the idea that your experience is somehow indicative of a "higher" or more truthful version of reality than everybody else's. I don't see how it's in any way helpful or productive.

A few counter-questions to poke at your hypothesis:

Are you able to imagine sound? To me, imagining and hearing sound, and imagining and seeing images are equivalent relations. It seems obvious to me, but of course since we're talking about the literal differences of the way human minds can function here, I can see how it might not be to some.

Do you dream at all? I can still picture a lot of scenes from my most vivid dreams.

Do you read fiction? It's hard to imagine what's that like if I can't, well, paint a picture of the scenes you're trying to imagine, like in a movie.

(edited to clarify the last sentence)

(not the person you're replying to, but as someone with aphantasia I'll bite...)

I can imagine sounds extremely well. For songs I feel like I have a CD player in my head, remembering even surprisingly subtle nuances and bits of a song. No musical background at all - maybe I should have been one.

Dreams are sometimes extremely vivid - sometimes I wake up astonished and the colors and the imagery I saw, but the memory quickly fades. After finding out about aphantasia I'm frustrated to hear that others can do the same thing while awake.

Read tons and tons of SciFi for the last 40 years. No images through, it's like listening to a radio play. Maybe that's why I'm drawn to movies, TV, and comic books - for the supplied visual material.

I'm mildly aphantadic. I can see flashes of image, but can't hold them, and with little colour. I feel this has worsened with time.

However, I can know where objects are in a room and am excellent at navigating a city in my mind. It's like the data is there, but I can't visualize it, if that makes sense.

Music and sound recall is excellent. I have good memory of spoken words, and I can play songs in my head in what seems like full detail.

I dream. I kept a dream journal for a while and had a lot of detail. Though, I think I had more visualization then. I can definitely still recall dreams with a lot of detail though. But it's like my waking thoughts: the images aren't vivid.

Fiction is easy. I don't have visuals in the rest of my life, so I'm hardly missing them there. I think the same thing happens where I imagine a room with objects, but I just can't quite see it. But it's there.

What is hard is poetry, most of it I simply can't get into. There are a few exceptions. I've liked some ancient greek stuff, and I liked Felix Dennis. But most is just dull for me.

I'm not really into hiphop and it occurs to me this could be part of it....

I am aphantasiac. I can imagine sound, but I bet it's not the way a person who 'hears it' does.

I play piano and sing (badly), so when I imagine sounds it's imagining moving the muscles to create them -- either my fingers or vocal chords. By 'imagining moving' I mean similar to subvocalization or imagining, like, throwing a ball or something -- there is clearly some interaction between my muscles and my brain when I do it, like it is simulating the muscle activations necessary without actually executing them.

I imagine sounds, better than most people I think. I wouldn't say I hear the sounds I play in my head but I can run a recording though my head and sense, for example, the differences between two instances of the same tune, like switching back and forth between a live and studio recording of a song in my head.

It makes me particularly good at identifying tunes from the first few notes.

I dream, my memory of dreams is much worse than most.

I used to read a lot of fiction, I don't anymore due to depression, when I finished a book it tended to send me into a crash.

When I did read fiction the words on the page were what was happening. It feels to me like painting a scene from the words and then looking at it with your mind's eye to get the experience is just a middle step that I skip, the words provide the experience directly.

At first glance it seems like there should be observable differences between the delusion hypothesis and the aphantasia hypothesis and thus they can be told apart experimentally.

It might also be possible to check with MRI which areas of the brain are active and whether there's a difference between those groups. If something known to process visual data is active in some people and not in others it would be evidence against the delusion hypothesis. In fact, some of the cited papers seem to be doing something like that.

I'm not sure I would trust a (f)MRI analysis, but I expect it could be tested for. Experiment designers can come up with very cunning methods to tweak these things out.

There are experiments showing that some people who are cortically blind can make decisions based upon the vision of which they have no sense experience. The McGurk effect demonstrates people having an experience that isn't real. In fact the McGurk effect also shows how difficult things get with terminology when you 'hear' something different to what you hear. It's the same problem I mentioned above. If you feel like you are hearing 'da' when your ears receive 'ba' what are you actually 'hearing'?

People have already done this... That's how we learned of aphantasia in the first place...

This happened to me. Saw a Facebook post forma friend and then realized I had it, and all the implications and some difficulties in my academic and professional life.

I told my friends, some of whom went "ah-ha!". Oddly, someone who ran a lot of our WoW raids basically put 2+2 together and recognized why I had an almost impossible time on some bosses.

I also found out my mother has it - and she didnt know it was a thing either.

I had ALWAYS thought people were just bs'ing when someone would say stuff like "visualize this or that".

It's a shame that it feels like it hampers (or partly hampers) a lot of fields I am very interested in.

I have 0 visual ability when awake, but fully vivid dreams and vivid lucid dreaming... so theres just something that turns that off completely while fully awake.

It’s an interesting concept but to me there’s enough evidence that people really can make images in their head while I cannot.

I remember being really amazed at photo-fit artists and how they could recreate faces someone else had seen just from an explanation. It was only once I realised I couldn’t make images in my head that I realised it wasn’t the artist who had super-powers, it was the person who could actually remember someone else’s appearance in their head and tell them what to draw.

My thinking is that people have lossily compressed images in their minds.

I heard chess masters are way better than normal people at remembering legal chess positions but no better than average at remembering illegal ones.

So I think it could be about learning a better representation with fewer artifacts.

Well, I used to see images when I was younger, and now I don't. It went away sometime around college, I think, though I didn't realize it at the time.

I'm honestly not sure what it would even mean to hallucinate the ability to hallucinate.