I have aphantasia, I’m glad we’re all on a level playing field now.
I’ve no idea how to even check. According to various tests I believe I have aphantasia. But mostly I’ve got not even a slightest idea on how not having it is supposed to work. I guess this is one of those mysteries when a missing sense cannot be described in any manner.
Without aphantasia, it should be easy to "see" where the dots are since your mind has placed them on the apple somewhere already. Maybe they're in a line, or arranged in a triangle, across the middle or at the top.
How do people with aphantasia answer the question?
I hadn't really placed those three dots in a specific place on the apple. But when you ask where they are, I'll decide to put them in a line on the apple. If you ask what color they are, I'll have to decide.
That is, they have to ascribe a placement rather than describe one in the image their mind conjured up.
Edit: This iDevice really wants to capitalise Apple.
Then maybe, at least in my case, it is my inability to focus my imagination when my senses are already being bombarded with external stimuli. But I cannot speak for anyone else.
To answer the question I imagine an apple with three dots in a triangle, closely together. There is no color because there is no real image, it’s just an idea. As other have said if prompted the idea gets more detailed.
That said, when I tried to learn building mind palaces it has worked. I can “walk through” places I know just fine, even recall visual details like holes in a letterbox. But again, there is no image.
In my conscious experience I pretty much imagine {apple, dot, dot, dot}. I don't "see" blue, the dots are tagged with dot.color == blue.
When you ask about the arrangement of the dots, I'll THEN think about it, and then says "arranged in a triangle." But that's because you've probed with your question. Before you probed, there's no concept in my mind of any geometric arrangement.
If I hadn't been prompted to think / naturally thought about the color of the apple, and you asked me "what color is the apple." Only then would I say "green" or "red."
If you asked me to describe my office (for example) my brain can't really imagine it "holistically." I can think of the desk and then enumerate it's properties: white legs, wooden top, rug on ground. But, essentially, I'm running a geometric iterator over the scene, starting from some anchor object, jumping to nearby objects, and then enumerating their properties.
I have glimpses of what it's like to "see" in my minds eye. At night, in bed, just before sleep, if I concentrate really hard, I can sometimes see fleeting images. I liken it to looking at one of those eye puzzles where you have to relax your eyes to "see it." I almost have to focus on "seeing" without looking into the blackness of my closed eyes.
Like they'll start at an arm and move along filling the rest of the body correctly the first time. No sketching, no finding the lines, just a human printer.
You may notice when doing the apple test, once you try and define a texture, your brain adding things you think should be there.
Scared the crap out of me a few years ago when I realized I had it. Came to grips with it now.
No one really sees 3d pictures in their head in HD
It's equally astonishing to me that others are different.
Do you see these pictures the same as if you were watching an HD TV?
I'm going to guess no. You don't see literally high def pictures in your head.
That's fine, but your egocentric inability to acknowledge other people have different abilities is not, it's childish.
It not just images either, it's short videos.
What's interesting though is that the "video" can be missing details that I will "hallucinate" back in that will be incorrect. So I cannot always fully trust these. Like cutting the apple in half lead to a ~1/8th slice missing from one of the halves. It's weird.
There are people who actually "see" a full-ass movie in their head when they read.
These are also the people who get REALLY angry when some live-action casting choice isn't exactly like in the book. I just go "meh", because I kinda remember the main character had red hair and a scar and that's it. :D
I have had some people claim to me that they can literally see what they are imagining as if it is in front of them for prolonged periods of time, in a similar way to how it would show up via AR goggles.
I guess this is a spectrum and it's tough to dealineate the abilities. But I just looked it up and what I am describing is hyperphantasia.
It's interesting that if non-aphantasia people are so common, I wonder why so few paintings have scenery based solely on imagination. I even remember asking a person who paints (not in the context of this condition) how hard it was for him to paint something not directly before his eyes, but from imagination, and why he didn't do it more often. I recall that he definitely did this (painting from imagination) rarely or not at all, and the question really puzzled him
I have aphantasia and my dog isn't anywhere. It's just a dog, you didn't ask me to visualize anything else.
When you ask about details, like color, tail length, eyes then I have to make them up on the spot. I can do that very quickly but I don't "see" the good boy.