Aphantasia and ASD survey

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It's been said there may be a link between aphantasia and autism. I came across this survey which asks some questions re mental imagery , and also has some ASD related questions to answer.

I am able to visualize things described in stories either real or fictional, but without much detail. That becomes apparent to me when I see illustrations or images of things in the story or a movie is made of the story.

There's a range from those who can't visualise at all, those like you and those who can see vivid images .

For me, the weakness in all the aphantasia quizzes is that they don't provide a definition of what it means to have a mental image of something. (And in fact, I don't know how it would be possible to give a definition. Maybe it is a case of "if you don't know what it means, then you don't see them"?) So, no matter how many questions are asked, for me the same uncertainty exists for every one of them. The best answer I can come up with is that I have no actual image in my mind at all, but rather, I have a vague "knowledge of what things look like."

But, and this is the big question for me: Is it possible that what I would describe as "having a vague knowledge of what something looks like" is what someone else would describe as seeing a clear image?

I used to assume that my "vague knowledge of what things look like" was what other people described, by vastly exaggerating, as "seeing images." After reading a lot on the subject, I have come to suspect that some people really do "see images," and that, by their standards, I really see no images at all.

But without being able to get into the mind of another person, it is really hard to know what they mean by a mental image.

So I took the quiz, and my answer to all the image questions was the same; I see nothing, but I vaguely "know what things look like."

On the AQ type questions, I think I was off-scale aspie, as always.

I visualize things so strongly that until I was in middle school, I couldn't often tell if my imagination was real or not.

Sure I can do clear visualizations.
But so do nonvisual ones; turns out visual isn't my best amongst of sensory and conceptual imagination.

Auditory's my 'noisiest' or mostly constantly involuntarily ongoing in my head that is composing and switching mental music from recall is practically effortless.
Except the music player in my head has broken buttons and doesn't allow stop or mute! I basically cannot stop. Sadly I got no real interest in it since early childhood.

The rest seems more voluntary.
Spatial is very vivid, touch is 'clear' enough, smell is clear, taste is clearer, proprioceptive is clear, interceptive is vivid, thermoception is clear, vestibular is clear somehow, emotional is vivid, kinesthethic is surprisingly vague, patterns are vivid, verbal is surprisingly clear, several concepts are clear yet some are just out of reach due to lack of processing power or crappy data.

Just enough not to rely much on verbal descriptions -- which is why I also suck at it.



My real question here, on which degree of aphantasia is common with autistics?
I'm sure visual's not the only type of aphantasia.

Or if it relates to memory, processing, more specific abstract types of concepts, or certain learning disabilities?



My experience says it might be reliant on a type of memory, and memory is more or less the gatherer of 'ingredients' and a something thing to put those memories onto a 'frame', process and conjure then mix up with it.
Why or how would one think having aphantasia has certain defences against PTSD, issues with certain memories and the like?

The rest may or may not be independent from -- and might as well independent from learning disabilities. But we're talking about autism.

Oh, and the link won't allow mobile browsing.

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Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

http://tinyurl.com/y4765973 does that work for mobile browsing?

No, I think it is the other way around
We live in our heads and picture a lot of things both good and bad

I always have pictures in my head, but they're not that clear or detailed and I'm not great at visual processing tasks.

I can't visualise. I struggle doing meditation because of this. Everything is just black.

My autobiographical memory is poor. I can remember the outline of some events , but a more detailed recall eludes me.

^^ Likewise. My memories often don't feel as if they were something I "lived". Quite often, they could just as easily be "trivia facts" that I've read about someone with the same name as me. I also find it very hard to judge how long ago something is remembered from. I often don't have even the vaguest sense of whether it's as recently as yesterday or from many years ago, and have to try to work it out by correlating with other "trivia facts" about myself. If something needs to be done at a certain time, I have to have a date and time written down - just agreeing on "a week Friday" is no good, because even if I remember the agreement, I have no idea how long ago it was made.

This is interesting. I'm actually the complete opposite however. I can imagine very vividly explosive visual experiences, and my other sensory-based memories and imagination are still quite huge. Some things are highly abstract like impossible shapes textures, and colors. My biggest issue seems to be less visual thoughts and instead trying to communicate these complex thoughts to others.

I can't imagine images,smells,sounds, taste and touch.