I’m curious how that kind of visual/spatial memory interacts with the inability to visualize your imagination.
Yes. I have a good spatial thinking and memory. I know where I’ve seen my glasses last, I just can’t visualise it.
I delivered packages for the postal service one summer during studies. It took me two weeks to memorize all the streets of the town I had moved to two years prior.
I prefer to do my 3D modelling in OpenSCAD because 2D visualizations are harder to work with than math & code.
I spent some more time thinking about this. Me and a group of friends spent way too many years playing a MUD game back in the 90s. Some would jot down maps of areas.
I didn’t find maps particularly helpful, but I guess I felt like the rooms had a direction and would navigate by that. I could probably still find my way around there. I’d describe it like a vector database.
I am able to “visualize” the spatial distance between objects. I put it in quotes because it’s generally blurry 2D lines (top down, like a schematic) or purely based on the relationship between those objects (i.e., I don’t “see” anything, it’s based on memory and spatial awareness of an environment I experienced using all of my senses).
These “visuals” are static and can’t really be manipulated in any way except to zoom in or rotate a little, maybe 45 degrees max. This is also why, during reasoning assessments for jobs, I take forever to answer those questions where they show you a shape, then disassemble the shape and ask you to select which set of faces it’s based on. It’s excruciating.
In real life I don’t have much of a problem; in fact, I have an excellent sense of direction that my wife envies because she’s the opposite (great mental visualisation and vivid dreams, but no idea where she is most times).
I can sometimes get a wireframe image of a general shape like that - not solid, no color or details.
I have a complete lack of visual mental imagery. That doesn’t mean I can’t remember building layouts though. I just don’t recall them visually.
I used to think I had aphantasia, but after starting ADHD medications I’ve found my ability to recall visually has improved. I now can walk-through a place visually, though not at all clearly. My ability of recall has improved in every domain overall. Prior I only had access to abstractions, mainly relationships. Recalling words to describe those relationships could be difficult, even if I knew the word. The recall function would just fail, causing great difficulty communicating verbally.
I would hasten to add that I don’t definitely have the condition named ADHD–there is no definitive diagnostic tool and doctors have expressed concerns of autism. I’ve been subjected to traumatic brain injuries too, with one leaving me temporally blind. This leaves me doubtful of being a natural example of a developed ADHD human (one not intentionally harmed and allowed to develop optimally), but of a human that has received multiple traumatic brain injuries expressing qualities of a ADHD inflicted human.
I’m aware of a condition informally named sledhead: a condition that occurs in bobsled operators (drivers?) that induces depression and often leads to suicide. I have a pet-theory that the vibrations in motor-vehicles do cause minor brain injuries as those found in the more extreme environment of bobsled racing, only differing in scale. I wouldn’t be surprised if time-spent inside motor-vehicles–especially poorly maintained ones that exhibit more intense-vibrations–correlates with poorer health outcomes overall.
It would be of interest to me if anyone were aware of research that describes links between mental-imagery, autism, brain-damage, ADHD and stimulants. It’s my impression that aphantasia is an expression of a deficiency in the human-brain.
If I move my focus to the middle space and blink really quickly I can overlay virtualizations onto reality. That includes any memory I have of an area.
Let’s use a cube as an example.
I can tell you roughly how large it is, if its rotating and roughly how fast. I “visualize” absolutely nothing. Not even a vague outline.
