thats interesting. So if someone asks you to draw a picture of a lighthouse, are you able to draw it without looking at an actual lighthouse or a picture of it? if yes, then how?
As I am drawing the lighthouse the part that I'm working on will have more descriptors popup in my inner voice. Like say I'm drawing the door, I will hear: "vertical slats, arched top, dark weathered wood" and as I drill into each of those, I will hear more words in my head.
Maybe I trained myself to do that over many many years of art classes, but I can't remember that not being the case.
To be fair: most folks don't really remember as many details as you think. Definitely not photo-level. I generally tell folks that you'll be able to draw a bird, sure. Even different kinds of birds - but they will be fairly generic and simple. You'll know it is a duck or goose or little bird or owl. But unless you've studied birds and drawn a lot of them, it won't be a blue jay, an exotic duck, a snowy owl, and so on. Not without a reference picture, of course.
Those reference photos are important enough that I had an art teacher that tasked us with taking reference photos with disposable cameras. This was mid-90s, before phones were everywhere and there were so many resources for such things.
I'll also add that I keep a dialog in my head as I draw. I can visualize well enough, but the 'thinking voice' come along and narrates the things I'm drawing. "Put that line there and go down and across the page...." "Just add that little window down there and remember the handle!"
When I've asked a room full of people "close your eyes. Think of an elephant. What do you see?", 80% of the people say "I see a rough elephant". I've asked "do you really see it? Like, there are proportions, colors, etc.?" Most people say yes.
When I close my eyes and I do this, I see... nothing but dark eyelids with sparkles.
Are the other people I've asked this of lying? Or are you mistaken that normal people don't have a mind's eye which actually reproduces images?
EDIT: OK, I'm curious. I've created an HN poll. Obviously our readership isn't an unbiased sample, but I'm very interested to learn how different people experience this experiment.
Edit: I didn't make my point clear. I think that people who claim to have aphantasia expect to see a hallucinated overlay over their vision, which is obviously not what someone means when they say "imagine what an apple looks like".
Speak for yourself. Just because it doesn't happen to you doesn't mean it doesn't to others. This is a skill you might be able to develop, if you can visualize already. If you lack resources, you might visit various occult groups for tips. Visualisation is a big part of practice for some people.
An MRI will not "diagnose" you.
"Yet, there is no consensus on whether aphantasia should really be described as a 'condition', and there is no battery of psychometric instruments to detect or 'diagnose' aphantasia. Instead, researchers currently rely on the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) to 'diagnose' aphantasia." [1]
There is not a test that can realistically be relied on. At least one of the top results was someone getting an MRI because of sudden aphantasia. At least one of them was about mouse studies.
And I'll just go back to what I've said: You can't get diagnosed with an MRI, and honestly it'd probably be irresponsible to do so since folks with actual issues need the MRI (aphantasia generally seems to be a simple difference in the way one thinks rather than an actual condition. More akin to which hand is dominant than to anything physically wrong).
And sometimes, yeah, they might - especially with the way some folks describe it. It is very difficult to describe such things to other people who do not experience them.
Etc.
I never fully visualize it instantly. It's like my mind is creating the details over time. A minute later if you ask me to visualize it again, I still don't see it instantly, I need to remind myself "Oh yeah the door was wooden, the walls were white" etc.
I feel like a lot of differences in people's experience of this is less to do with their actual abilities of visualization and more to do with not being able to describe what is happening and observing yourself as a third party while you're thinking.
Looked it up, and turns out the ones in Oregon are. https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=oregon+lighthouses&form...
When I dream there's only a faint visual component, there's no color or detail.
Also, when reading fiction, I never have any use for the long-winded descriptions of a place and a character. I don't picture the scene or character, but I create my own "space" where I can place the characters and the action, and I can feel beeing there. This "space" can have details, but usually not a lot.
Recalling memories are similar. I can vividly feel the moment, and I can remember a lot of non-visual details, and often some distinct visual details. But I can't really picture it.
Same, and oh my goodness did my teachers in High School chastise me for not wanting to produce those same strings of adjectives in my own works. I fundamentally could not understand why someone would want to read that much description about the appearance of something.
My guess is that kind of "untrained intuitions" about drawing require two preconditions:
1. Having seen lighthouses or buildings and paid attention to how rust/marks/decay and the interplay of light and shadow looks like.
2. Being able to visualize this when drawing.
Otherwise, how can the drawing (without a photo reference) be anything but idealized and abstract?
"Edinburgh: “I can remember visual details,” he commented, “but I can’t see them”."
In this one, they show step by step how the artist does it: https://aphantasia.com/article/stories/visual-artist-with-ap...