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Comment by matsemann | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious:

1) But how do you navigate when you're not looking at the map? I'm placing myself mentally "in it" as a dot and can then know that I need to go two streets more etc. Or any game I've ever played I can recount now in my head, for instance I could explain to you how to get to a star in Super Mario 64. Can you do that without "visualizing"? What if I ask what level is to the immediate right when entering the castle? I can see it, but I wouldn't have memorized it any other way I think?

Also 1), when I do maths I also visualize it. Like I can mentally integrate a formula, and then I see it in my head as if it was on a piece of paper. How do you keep track if you can't see it? Or programming, it's like things that align in my vision when I design some piece of code, I can see the different parts and how they will fit together, how is that for you?

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Not OP but aphant: the information is there, we just can't "see" it. So we can know how to navigate because the map is stored, it's just that we can't access it in a visual way. Note that for me the access is less detailed and also fades quicker.

As for maths: I actually have a physics PhD and am now a C++ dev. I couldn't mentally integrate anything complex. Never needed to, someone invented paper at some point ;) I'm a decent programmer I'd say, it seems to be common among aphants to be good at abstract reasoning, which I think really helps with coming up with good programming solutions to concrete problems.

So - as one who still has a tough time understanding how anybody can “see anything” in their head - you just connected that to something I have known is different about myself - I get lost instantly (google maps was a godsend). And when I mean instantly - I mean if I am in a new place, I can go a block away to a Mcdonalds and have no idea how to find my way back - I have zero ability to store any visual routes for something as simple as just a block away. Once I walk that block - can’t find my way back even though it’s literally just one block ways - everything looks the same to me. But - over time, I eventually memorize paths back and forth, and after a really long time I can mentally (but not visually) - start to place myself in context - just as long as I don’t ever turn a corner I haven’t before - at which point I’m totally lost - even if I’ve lived in the place for 5 years - one random street or corner is all it takes.

It used to be really annoying prior to smartphones - but now I just love that first time in a new place that I move to - everything is completely and absolutely a mystery for a few days - but I realize after a week or so I’ll be able to find my way back down the block without a smartphone.

It’s important to note you’ve captured something different than poor spatial perception (which I have as well - I am unable to navigate with a map.) - There isn’t a lot of spatial perception involved in walking one block down a street and then finding your way back a couple 100’ based on obvious landmarks. Though - presumably if you had good spatial perception (but no visual memory) - you could do it simply by remembering precisely what your spatial relationship to your origin was, without reference to anything visual - it’s the lack of either which results in me getting lost instantly.

In order to navigate after I put down the map, I have learned I have to literally translate it into words. Like, “turn left, go two streets, and turn right”. Especially if I’m heading south — if I don’t reinforce that I need to turn “right”, rather than “west” I can easily do it wrong.

I have no trouble drawing a map of a place I know. But I’m not drawing it from an imagined map. There must be some spatial representation in there somewhere, but it’s not an image that I can see before I draw it.

Not OP, but another visual aphant.

Navigation - I'm doing the same thing, but without "seeing" it. I know Georgetown is N-NE of Austin, Liberty Hill is due W from Georgetown, IH-35 runs N-S but actually slightly NE-SW through Austin for example. I can draw pretty good maps on command (if not to scale), but I don't "see" that until I put it on paper. I think I actually have a much better recall of spatial relations than my wife, who has a vivid mind's eye.

Regarding math: again a similar process, but I don't "see"the equations. Coding is interesting because when I'm really in the zone I feel like I can sit, think, and come up with a holistic design for some problem. Then as I start to write the code I can "feel" the congruence or discongruence between the code I've written and the design I conceptualized. But it's not, for example, a visualized graph in my head. It's more of a physical graph, like holding a carved statue and feeling the curves, edges, and features. Except it's not the same physical sensation as touch, but a mental analog.

Edit: another commentator called it "imaginary proprioception" which I find very apt.

Spatial imagination and visual are two different things it seems.

I am a visual aphant, but I can imagine objects in virtual 3d space - kind of like a blind person navigating through touch. It’s just that objects are points/lines and I remember what label a given point is.

Also, I can map things to a feelings - a feeling of going left/right etc.

Navigation is a non issue to me, whereas I have friends who have perfect visual imagination but they cannot connect it to spacial/physical imagination. E.g. a friend of mine can imagine various plants, but she couldn’t buy a container for them because she cannot imagine their volumes. I can imagine volumes, but cannot imagine visualy.

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