Thinking in Pictures as Opposed to God Knows What Other Way

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As far as I can tell my thought process is entirely sensory/imaginative, I really don't understand what this thinking in concepts is. My verbal thought doesn't ever seem to stop, but usually visual conclusions come first while thinking.

The event: drying clothes.

OK, I have to dry my clothes, so I'm saying this in an undertone, and I picture my washer with colored clothes through the clear door, and my stairs and railing to get down there. There was a light switch pop too.

A verbal along with two quick literal pictures, and a sound effect -- .

Other scenarios can entail nonverbal images that are personally intuitive to me or "concepts," as brought out in upper thread.

I think I have visual underneath as the base structure with auditory (not really verbal) on top. Like if I imagine going somewhere, it is instantly totally visual in 3D, like I would experience it if I went there (i.e. passages of how it was the last time I journeyed there or how I would imagine it would be). So, I am excellent with maps, and can remember how to get somewhere after going there once, and interpret maps without much difficulty (like I read the other day that people apparently have trouble with the NYC subway system, but when I went there on vacation, I used it often with no trouble at all). My memories are mostly visual too, like the way I observed them in real time, in 3D spaces. Voices remembered are mostly just the sounds and tones of the voices and the general idea of what was said, if it was important (more specific details of the ideas recalled if necessary, often very detailed much of the time, but I don't think this info is stored as words) (but the people are in my memory exactly as I observed them at the time). This is sort of like in my dreams -- I cannot think of any instance in my dreams where anyone was talking or I heard words, but yet there was occasional communication as needed. I am apparently pretty good at drawing, which fits with the visual recall.

I have a really great memory for music (all the instrument tracks), though (thinking of going into recording engineering, as I love music and apparently being able to recall all the songs you hear and to spontaneously separate out all the tracks at will is not a common skill) (but admittedly have a pretty crummy recall for the actual lyrics beyond how they sound). As MrXxx said previously, "There is frequently an appropriate song for whatever topic is at hand. I hear those at the same time I see the visuals." Often a song pops into my head during the day which is on topic (sometimes in a peripheral way), and sometimes one I haven't heard in many years, and I hear it in my head as it was at the time. I also have an ongoing narrator-me voice in my head which is basically an approximation of me talking to myself (it doesn't really sound exactly like my voice, though, which is perhaps a side effect of my not really saying much until a few years ago). But visualization has priority, I think -- if I really want to understand at technical concept which is really tricky, I sort of have to move my hands around in space to put the concepts in their spots, even if they don't really have physical representations. Guess that makes me a really strong visual-spatial thinker. This makes learning from textbooks rather than labs really slow, though, if there are few illustrations. Plus, the narrator voice is more for entertainment and commentary than actual functioning during general activity; I just went and brushed my teeth partway through this writeup with just than a song I heard an hour ago running on my auditory track plus occasional thoughts of what I would write next in this (nothing about the activity was verbal).

Also, like MrXxx, I do talk out loud to myself or read the book I am reading aloud while trying to process lots of information. I guess it helps to keep track of things somehow. For instance, during a test I wrote last week, I was in a big hurry on the last question due to almost running out of time, so I tried to really use my processing skills to their best: I mouthed out the questions and what I was doing to myself (not actually audibly) and motioned around a bit (like pointed at equations and such to keep track), and somehow it really worked (instead of making errors as often happen in long calculation questions, I was able to keep track of things). I think maybe it is the bringing out the ideas to the physical world that helps more than the actual speaking the words for me. However, when studying difficult technical material or anything I haven't got a good visualization of yet, I generally do have to read it out loud (just mumbling it under my breath or very lightly whispering is just as good, though, it seems) to get a hook into it, I guess; once the visual framework is in place, the reading goes a lot more fluidly and internally.

I really don't remember what I thought like as a kid, partly because I don't recall much of this time period specifically. Like, there's maybe 1 or 2 events for every year, maybe, that stand out, like being at the beach on a rock looking out toward the ocean when I wanted to remember it and vague snippets of working in the garden and such. I guess most of it's there, though, if I try to recall certain areas or time periods. They're mostly experiencial, though, I think, with 3D visual and physical experience the strongest. (Like I recall eating a carrot in the garden, how it tasted sort of gritty, and what it and the surrounding environment looked like at the time, etc.) My memory of these things now seems to have most of the data attached, from the beep of the microwave in the kitchen to the feel of the chair seat in church, but visual and musical are strongest. I think this might relate to the "remembering things in raw data" thing that I read about in some other thread; if I observe something and understand it, it gets remembered as well as I recall perceiving it at the time (I don't seem to have a very good memory for faces, though, which might just mean they don't get fully processed). At least I'll never forget where I put my keys (although I always put them in the same place, anyway, for the sake of efficiency).

Edit: Actually, I can totally relate to ladyrain's post of Thu Aug 12, 2010 9:15 am over here: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postxf87811-0-30.html I have more visual info, though, than that, but I suppose it's more as observed rather than the actual details of the sights; more what I would need to interact with the environment and think about it at the time (like I can see the guy I was talking to last week putting on his grey sweater at the time as he started talking to me then, and the papers that were over the table where I was, and the local environment, but the visual details outside of that, are mostly much sparser. I think this would relate to the speculated fact that what we see isn't actually more than a bit at a time; to see, we scan the local environment, and really only see what is in the centres of our visual fields, with the rest outside of this narrow range actually being a blur, which is actually simulated and extrapolated from what we know or expect at the time.

As this other poster said, " the visual details are almost textual, what is recalled is perfect, but it isn't everything that was there." That sounds about right. My abilities in this haven't gone away, though, and are probably better than ever. I don't have much to PTSD over in there, though, and that perhaps causes her memory skills suppression. I agree with this, too: "instant recall of the entire process of reading it [a book], the whole story, every thought and conclusion I had had while reading, the whole sensation of the experience, to the extent that I just couldn't reread anything, there was no point. The same with movies - I didn't need to rewatch anything, thirty seconds brought every detail back - where I was, who was there, everything, not just the film." and never rewatch movies either, with one exception where I watched the first LOTR movie over spring break, which was a different experience because I had played LOTRO a bunch and the scenes kept matching up with the landscape of the game, which was pretty cool. While my internal jukebox can play a version of the song which seems the same in my head, I still enjoy playing whatever song I want to hear, too; music has more depth in the actual world, even when played for the tenth or so time in a row (like I know what comes next, but I always like it anyway).

Last edited by dancing_penguin on 21 Mar 2012, 1:48 am, edited 2 times in total.

My thinking style is practical...you could say.
If I have to buy apples, I won't think of pictures of apples, nor anything like that. In my head I'll simply hear myself say "I have to buy apples...I like red apples. They cost X amount of money and the store is on y street." That's all.
If I have to recall an event....e.g. I have lost something. I'll replay a video in my head of the incident where I think I could've lost it. A video is more accurate than words are and better than a picture. So that's what I do.
If I want to recall a talk I had with someone because I want to figure out if I missed something.....again, I'll play an audio-visual thought string in my head of said conversation.
I actually, rarely think in pictures. If I have to recall written words I have learned and I can't outright recall them with my voice, than I'll think of a picture of the page or display where I've read those words and this will help me sometimes. So a picture is used for something static.

For me, my inner-monologue is much faster than a picture or video would be....they are used to analyse things. That's their purpose in my thought process.

I tend to think more in words and concepts than in pictures or videos.

I can't say that I only think in images or words, and I don't think that anybody else can. Think about it: If you only thought in images, you wouldn't be able to post here. And if you only thought in words, you wouldn't recognize a tree unless it had a label attached that reads "tree". The reason that you can not only recognize a tree, but also speak the word and spell it out is that you simultaneously think on all three levels, like all other people do.

Memories are stored in neural clusters, and you can't recall or imagine anything without getting a whole bunch of related information that includes images, emotions, scents, and written as well as spoken words. If you think "bush", you will auditize the word, remember how to spell it, and visualize one or more images. You will probably see some green shrubbery as well as two U.S. presidents before your inner eye. Chances are that you will feel quite upset about one or both of those presidents. That emotion is also part of your thought process.

But it doesn't stop there, because your mind makes all kinds of associations. The burning bush, Bushman, bush pilot, blueberries, thorns, and so on. Thought is a mental database query, so to speak. Of course if somebody asks you "do you think in words or images", you will feel inclined to pick one of those two options. But don't be fooled, the question is a false dilemma. There is no either-or when it comes to thought and memory, no matter what Temple Grandin says. The human brain isn't that simplistic.

Isn't it generally speculated that the severely autistic do not think using language (or maybe no one really knows; I don't know that much about this particular topic)? I think also babies do not yet think using language until they learn it, which is why much of the store of early memories is expected to not be recalled by people over the age of 2 or so. I don't think animals think using language, either (except for some animals like crows and monkeys which we know do communicate quite a bit with each other); I think it is interesting to try to think of how a squirrel or a dog really sees and processes the world in general (and who knows, maybe they have more knowledge of language than we think).

Edit: this is an interesting supplemental article on autistic thought which I found just now: link It talks about a lot of other topics, but the autistic person there who doesn't actually speak communicated as follows: "27-year-old Amanda Baggs — who is autistic and doesn't speak — describes in vivid and articulate terms what's going on inside her head as she carries out these seemingly bizarre actions. In a synthesized voice generated by a software application, she explains that touching, tasting, and smelling allow her to have a "constant conversation" with her surroundings. These forms of nonverbal stimuli constitute her "native language.""

Last edited by dancing_penguin on 21 Mar 2012, 2:12 am, edited 2 times in total.

Well I know I never thought in Spanish or Japanese until I started learning it. So pictures could be the default thought process.

But I still think primarily in picture so maybe some never move on to language/word thinking.

I think visually when someone is talking to me. When reading and talking I do this too. Full 3-D style. Turning pictures over in the head and all.

When I am actually thinking that is bringing up thoughts in my head or going over something in my head I am both visual and verbal.

People can think in images, single words, verbal thoughts, sounds, concepts, etc.

I for the most part think in a narrative style but I'm also highly visual. When I think up new scenes for my book I have the hear the dialogue and see it unfolding in images or in a movie. I can't just jump in front of my computer and type. I have to see it before I can write anything.

I have snap shots of locations in my mind which help me feel comfortable in certain environments, but if these change just a little I will have to re-capture them. But in a changing environment like a market place I will never feel comfortable.

Temple Grandin says autistic people think in the sub conscious and with me and her images just flood into our minds without even thinking. Someone says something and there's an associative image.
Some people can only think of a word spelled out and not the image a visual thinker will usually see. I can't just see the word apple but the actual fruit and pretty soon I'll be able to taste and smell it.

In autism there's always a predominant thinking style. Maybe with NT's they can think all kinds of ways but in autism there is a dominant form.

The fact is some people have a strong visual thinking style and some people don't. It's what makes people great artists and the other great storytellers. I had to learn to think verbally because when I'd try to describe things in my writing I couldn't because I saw the description in my mind and assumed that's what other people saw too. I still think people will see a character or location exactly as I see it but the truth is that's not going to happen. It's still so very exhausting trying to write out a detailed description too.

I've been into art since I was about 2 or 3, longer than I could talk or read or write so it's my first language. It's the way I experience the world; in shapes, colours and shadows. That's what I look at the most. I don't even think when I do that.

I think you're taking this all a bit literally. Yes, we can associate a word to an object because we've learnt it, for it to be a thinking style we need to think more about that word than the object it looks like.

What about people with photographic memories? That's a very strong visual style.

Anyway, think about what you want. I for one am going to get practical use out of my visual thinking style.

This may actually be quite close to the truth.

I always made a lot of noise as a child and right up until a few years ago, in my late 40s.

It's clear now that while I am able to deliver convincing performances, I was just trying to fit in, efforts which were singularly failures.

When I am not making theatrical noise and particularly when I am not drinking alcohol (which I have now given up) I am quite happy to be left alone and more than happy to avoid 'social' situations whenever possible.

I have heard that a lot of introverts 'overcompensate' by acting extroverted, regardless of their neurology.

This social matrix really is quite a burden.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could score social 'points' for demonstrating an aptitude for mental arithmetic, discussing the Third Chinese Dynasty or (fill in the blank) whatever your special interest happens to be?

Instead we have to participate in this never ending costume party, playing charades and second guessing subtext because communicating clearly and directly is considered improper or offensive!

Last edited by Blindspot149 on 21 Mar 2012, 5:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

That is true to a certain extent. However the strength of each style of thinking varies between people. For instance when I thought of a tree the first thing I got was a vague colorless outline of a tree and the texture of leaves. Some other people would get a sharp picture of a specific tree or trees in full color.
People do think differently and each method has it's advantages and disadvantages. Take as an example those tests where you have a series of pictures of parts at different angles and you have to try to find the ones that are the same part. Some people can form a 3D image in their head and rotate it - picture based thinking. I break the image down into sections and work out the physics of moving each section - pattern based thinking. In that case the pattern based approach is slower. However when it comes to stuff like computer programming, pattern thinking works better than picture thinking.

That sounds like an eidetic type of memory retrieval (visual,auditory, tactile, gustatory and olfactory factors).

Do you think artists who are skilled in visual arts are predominantly visual thinkers?
E.g. I'm very good at drawing and other visual creational things....most people who know me were quiet shocked and disappointed I didn't try to pursue a career in any field related to the visual world.
My point being: I have visual associations sometimes but not all the time. Mostly, I'm hearing myself talk all day. Although if needed I can create visuals in my head for whatever but those are videos for the most part. I don't know if this means that I'm a visual thinker...or a verbal one. Would the dominance of one of those styles make you better at anything?
I once took a creative writing course.....it turned out that my writing style was very "sober", clipped and "sterile". No flourishes and ornaments, not trying to be funny or anything at all. Even with the task of mimicking other writing styles, I failed and everybody spotted what I had written (there was a text and you had to continue writing it and people had to guess where the fake part started).
I don't know if this has anything to do with the way I think (whether it be visual, auditory or verbal).



Memory and thought process are different but linked.

wiki

I haven't thought about that but it would make sense for me....e.g. I mostly think auditory-verbally but my memory is mostly visual and audio-visual.

Also....as I was washing dishes I thought about this very words I'm writing here,..I heard them with my mind's ear. At the same time, I had images of this board, particularly the alteration of the two colours mint green and sky blue in rectangular shapes. Those were my associations (probably derived from my working memory) which didn't add any content to the actual written/thought out word (well, now they do but that's because I'd decided to include this visual association in my description).

I've also read (some minutes ago) that people with dyscalculia have a good visual memory for printed words which, ironically, is one of the things I described in my last post. Then again, they are said to have a bad visual memory for numbers and mathematical situations which leads me to assume that visual memory can be split into categories of some sort dependent on other abilities.


I can't do neither. This is visuo-spatial thinking, isn't it? If you can rotate 3D images in your head?
Or is visual and visuo-spatial the same?

This might as well had been written by me, I think exactly the same way as it is described there, I have synaesthesia and I completely understand what you mean.

It's interesting that describing why you think in words, you describe it so analogously in visual terms.

This could be what I'm doing, though the analogy I used is different. Think of my thoughts during any process as a three dimensional collection of three dimensional "bubbles" each of which roughly contain a complete detailed 3D image of an idea. Each bubble is a different idea. There could be any number of them. I don't "see" all the details in each one until I get into it (effectively focusing on the one) at which time the others fade to memory the way a window on a computer screen that's in focus is right in front and you can see the details, but all the others are behind it, except that in my head it's a 3D process, not 2D.

I think to make sense of things, 3D is too complex. I can't prioritize in 3D. I need a linear process to prioritize. Talking in sentences is linear. One thought comes before another when I speak, unlike unspoken thought processes. That forces me to change the mental imagery from 3D to 2D, thus facilitating priority lists. That's part of it. The other part of it, I think, is kind of like a "string theory" related to the "universe in my head." I think by talking things out, I'm sometimes following the connections between one thing and another, following the flow as it were, the fabric that makes up that universe, or whatever part of it I'm investigating at the moment

Still, the "linearizing" of this 3D process is a visual concept in itself. I think by talking things through, I'm putting things in order, which is also a visual process, but I can't do it without making myself talk about it, which forces my brain from 3D gear to 2D gear, because I can't make good enough sense of the 3D.



Sounds like me.



I don't think I do either, until things start to go wrong or if they are not working. Then I start babbling to make sense out of it, but the "making sense" part is still visual. I guess the verbalizing is really just a facilitator to "flatten" and simplify the complexity my brain creates. Weird huh? My mind creates constructs even I can't understand unless I convert them to something simpler.

Wait! No. That's not it at all.

I CAN understand them, but I can't EXPLAIN them to anyone else without flattening or simplifying. The ideas aren't any good to anyone but me, but can't be put to any practical use if no one else understands them. In a sense, I suppose it's a lot the same as your own reasons for doing it. So I can explain it to someone else if need be.