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Comment by solumunus | Hacker News Reader

How do you navigate via memory without some degree of mental visualisation? I’m convinced many aphantasia folk are just heavily overrating what other people are describing as visualisation, as if it’s some kind of minority report style interface that appears before you and is perceived by the eye. It’s simply being able to reconstruct physical entities as mental models. Again, without being able to do that it just seems impossible that you could navigate from memory, unless every destination is recorded in your mind as a series of “left, right, left, left, right at church” instructions that you’ve managed to memorise, but surely you’re not doing that? You must be about to walk through the steps of a journey in your mind? I struggle to believe people are getting through life without this ability, it seems so essential to me in all sorts of scenarios.

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Maybe, but what other people write about their visualization experiences is completely alien to me. It's not a matter of degree.

Is there any analogy between reasoning about relationships and paths through complicated source code code vs paths through a street map? I don't think I visualize either, I just kind of absorb knowledge and piece together plans.

I don't have an inner monologue either, and I find that I've not infrequently found myself having to pronounce a word I've only ever read before. Ihhave to invent a spoken pronunciation for the first time ever and get self-conscious. It's not the same as aphantasia, but kind of similar. Well, maybe: when I see a movie about a book I've read, I never say, "oh, that actor looks different than what I thought the character looked like".

I don't mean to argue that aphantasia is "real", but I do feel there is evidence for it.

The difference is the recognition. If you tell me "to go right at the wall with the lion on it and left after the blue door" you're giving me an immense difficult task. If you want to totally screw me just show me pictures of the wall and the blue door, I probably be really lost.

It's not only about what is visualizable, but also what form of representation is comparable. I can read a map in a matter of seconds and find my way. I can find a car plate within my line of sight instantly. The way to the parking lot behind the <insert picture of something> and finding the blue <insert car brand> there is basically impossible for me. Of course I'm able to concentrate, but it doesn't come naturally.

> How do you navigate via memory without some degree of mental visualisation?

How do people who are physically blind from birth navigate without mental visualization?

> I’m convinced many aphantasia folk are just heavily overrating what other people are describing as visualisation

I find the utter disbelief expressed by people who don't have aphantasia exhausting. It would be similar to encountering someone who has been deaf from birth and trying to convince them that they're not really deaf, they just don't understand what it means when other people say that they hear things. They could also hear things if they just try harder.

because the average person relies so heavily on visualization in their day to day life, people that claim they dont have this ability but also seem to have no discernable difference in the way they interact with the world is what is confusing. everyone understands that deaf people exist because its really fucking obvious when someone is deaf. they interact with the world differently.

its really weird to me, and most everyone that you could be looking at a cup and trying to commit its visual properties to memory, and then close your eyes and be complete incapable of re-constructing even a vague visual representation of it.

> How do people who are physically blind from birth navigate without mental visualization?

I assume they create a mental model of space. To me, this is basically what I’m describing as visualisation. In ones mind one can arbitrarily place themselves in space and move around it. I guess this is slightly different to conjuring up an image, but to me it feels very similar. If you can “see” space in your minds eye, it seems like you could see other arbitrary things.

I’m not saying I don’t think this is a real phenomena, just that it’s hard to empathise and understand it.

If you could describe your experience of navigation from memory I would appreciate it. When someone asks you for directions somewhere, what goes through your mind?

I can visualize nothing, but have excellent navigation skills. I can accurately remember the geospatial arrangement of cities and locations and routes I visited only once decades ago. That part of my brain has nothing to do with “seeing things”

do you have any experience of feeling like youve been at a particular place before. if you dont remember seeing it, do you just remember the arangement of landmarks like dots on a grid?

It’s an innate sense which most closely resembles proprioception (knowing where you arms/legs/etc are), or remembering where you put your keys. I suppose maybe it’s similar to “seeing” landmarks on a map (not necessarily a grid) but it’s simultaneously abstract while being very well defined in some intuitive sense: I know the Vatican is this way and the Colosseum is that way and the Spanish Steps are that way (and every other spot I cared to notice on the map), and no matter where in the city I walk and so long as I know which way I’m facing, I’ll 100% know the relative direction and distance of every other spot (as well as the pathing! Not just locations but also streets, etc). It’s actually hard for me to get lost.

You can see references to this geospatial sense in ancient Roman times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci

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