Can you mentally visualize?

Post Reply New Topic

I'm just wondering about visualization and visual memory. I have neither.
Whether it's reading a book and picturing characters, or visualizing arithmetic in my mind to work out the sum, or remembering my way to a place I've been a bunch of times, or just recalling an image of anything or anyone to mind.
I did read that some with asd have deficits in this area, but I would like to know how common it is in asd.

I'm good with numbers, I see them clearly in my mind, and have an almost photographic memory for facts I've read, but I really struggle with picturing and remembering faces.

Oh yeah, prosopagnosia - I think that must have it's own visual centre or pathway coz it seems to be a disorder all on it's own.
Images while dreaming seem to be separate too. I have images when dreaming, but that's literally it.

I am thinking in pictures and have nearly photographic memory so yes - I find it easy to mentally visualize. It happens all the time, without me even trying. What I see might not be too detailed (for example when I picture my room it's like soon after sunset, without lights on - kinda dark) but I can recognize anything and when I put something in front of my mental eyes I can freely rotate and explore it. When I read a book I don't see letters - I see movies.

But I have prosopagnosia so I can't picture people. In my mind they are like gray shadows with generic faces wearing clothes and having different hairstyles. If someone has distinguishing facial feature I might see it too - but that's all.

I also have trouble with the arithmetic thing - I need to write down the numbers or else they escape my field of view and I forget what the number was. But it's working memory thing, not mental imaginary problem.

I can picture stuff - but the pictures I see change too fast to use them as a piece of paper. I can't even copy what I see in imagination to paper because my mental image constantly changes and before I manage to draw a part of it I already see something totally different. The images in my mind are not static. They constantly move and transform. Even if I see an apple it it doesn't stay the same - it will change colors, shape, a worm will come out of it, someone will bite it and eventually it will even change into Apple logo which will gets bitten on the other end, change into some kind of liquid, get squeezed, dirtied and then return in image of an apple on grass that is going to turn into a bunch of apples under apple tree which will turn into a garden and from there I will start exploring the garden which will alternate between my aunt garden and my grandma gardens and will also see the apple tree in my garden and near my other grandma, and the apples in bowl at my grandma house, and her garden, and her house with every single room pictured as if I were really there...

I have a visual memory that throws up pictures or even "video" without my trying, and visualizing something deliberately also comes relatively easily to me. I don't know if it's particularly to do with autism for me so much as I'm artistically inclined so very visual anyway, to start with.

its like the internet on steroids!

Mine is pretty bad. I have difficulty visualizing where I'm going, what's around the next corner. Even though I've been on that same walk a zillion times.

I have face blindness.

There's no way I can visualize arithmetic.

What I visualize when reading is sketchy.

I have done some story writing that has a lot of detailed visuals, but I do that by looking at pictures of what I am writing about.

My visualization abilities are not so large. My visual thinking is not detailed. I have not gift of precocious visual thinking. I can visualise, but I am not "very functional" in it. I have not photographic memory.

Thank you for your answers.
I know aphantasia is not exclusive to autism. I think many people have it without having a neurological disorder. It does seem to me though that the rate of poor / no mental visualisation amongst asd community is higher than nt's. The opposite also seems true - As in the rate of superior skill in this area seems higher in asd comnunity too.

Again i think it is rather subjective, As each on the spectrum is in effect unique, each person has their own way of thinking... Just like with any other spectrum, people have their own way of looking at things, ie.. some on the spectrum dont visualize in pictorial form parse, but think in numbers or words... These type of individuals can potentially be good at math and sciences. Then you have the other end of those on the spectrum that visualize everything in pictorial form, and tend to be the creative and artsy types... Even the level of what amount of information can be accessed at anyone time is also subjective to the individual... For instance my long term memory is pretty darn good, and will often come across old friends and i will explain certain things that happened 30 years ago, right down to what they were wearing and even explain what perfume they were wearing at the time... To me despite being 30 years ago, to me it is as if it only happened moments ago... Thats how my synapses tends to work, for many they struggle to remember what they did yesterday! Certainly has positives and negatives, the negatives of remembering how a relationship ended 2 years ago is like reliving it every time you think about it as its like it only just happened moments ago... The thoughts, the smells, the emotions etc all hit you at once and you are sent through the journey of reliving things again and again.... thats The negative of having a memory of this type.... So again, just like any spectrum, it differs from person to person, however i do realize many on the spectrum do witness these things with alot more intricately and in more detail than none aspies.

(Disclaimer: Just my own view point from observation and experience)

I can only visualize things I have seen. I cannot fold images in my head to make it a shape and I cannot visualize something in my head and try and a draw from it. I also cannot do math problems in my head by visualizing because they float from my brain. I also cannot visualize things from words if I have never see it before. If a writer tried to describe a furniture piece in their book, I would have a hard time picturing it. I can't even picture my parents new RV. I am trying to visualize it by how they described it. They get it next week but right now they are working on a loan for it and going to trade in their current RV. I am just picturing it being one of those huge RVs that are a commercial truck size I have seen on the roads and they take up a whole commercial truck parking space but I am trying to picture how will a whole house fit in there because they said it had a real bathroom you would find in a home and real bedrooms it's like a house on the road. I also do not have a photographic memory.

Oh that's very interesting. So I wonder then if those 2 things are separate processes entirely. Visual recall and creating brand new mental imagery. I must look into that.

I guess what I'm trying to figure out is if my aphantasia is actually related to or part of asd or if it's just a separate comorbidity I happen to have.

I don't think so, but I find the differences really interesting.

I describe my imagination as working like a sort of atmospheric sonar. With some things, I can bring the sense of something so strongly it almost seems to form a picture, but I can't actually see it.

For a given scene or image, I start with associations. Of what it felt like to be there, what sensations and thoughts it evoked in me. From these I can sort of start to 'see', but it is very, very weak and disappears if I try to directly 'see' it. Sort of like my 'visualising' is peripheral only, and if I turn to look at it, it's gone.

Similarly, I don't 'visualise' from reading, unless it's sort of obtuse/indirect, or builds to an effect. A direct description of someone is wasted on me, but if a writer can do the equivalent of my 'visualising', I can sort of 'see', though still in that peripheral way.