Visual Thinking

Post Reply New Topic

I thought I would query this with everyone.

I read some articles in detail on visual thinking recently and it left me totally shocked.

Deja-vu.

It's never occured to me that anyone may think in any other way.

Pictures. From my pictures in my head I could draw a map of almost every building I've ever been in apart from the period I was drugged out of my mind on huge doses of anti-epileptics.

I have epilepsy sourced in my right temporal lobe, so maybe that had an impact. MRI scans showed no structural abnormalities or lesions.

I use visual thinking to assemble computer systems. I use that exclusively to construct data models and for object oriented programming.

I never realised that mode of thought was that uncommon.

How do people think without doing it that way? What do they actually do?

This just makes me curious as I find it difficult to grasp the concept of thinking any other way.

I'm curious what everyone else thinks of different modes of thinking.

As a young child, my primary mode of thinking was probably visual, but it has since become auditory. I remember, as a kid, associating the idea of grownups with an image of many legs. I also remember once being able to almost see something I was visualizing. However, now these visualization skills have by and large faded. My stream of consciousness is auditory now, a sort of inner voice.

When I am doing object-oriented programming, I simply devise objects and think of their interfaces. I do not actually visualize any kind of representation of objects with interaction points. I devise layers of abstraction that constitute an object-oriented hierarchy. I don't know how else to describe it because this way of thinking is not quite auditory, either. The solutions simply manifest themselves in my consciousness.

Now I understand.

I keep an internal monologue going to distract myself from my surroundings so now I see what you mean.

I use visualisation on computer programming and reading, although my memory is hazy for the more complex aspects I'm working on (no total recall), and I use it in a general fashion for learning jobs.

auditory thinking distracts me from paranoia and (to a degree) from tinitus (which is very annoying but talking in my head makes me forget the ringing in the ears to a point).

I can see now that I'm using both in different ways and in similar amounts, but I've never used auditory thinking for learning apart from my language skills (very articulate but poor grammer at times) and maths (my maths is shaky) and I've taken this as the norm while failing to appreciate the benefits of either.

This I agree, as I have said in the past and present
postings I do! "I write and speak how I think" and
this can even confuse the AS'rs on this site.
I am a visual thinker as "IlikeDragons" found
out and it is difficult for me to think otherwise.

I am aware that others aren't, but I am not them
and do my best to accomadate without losing
my own identity.



This is one of the reasons I don't advocate
meds as a co-morbid marketing $$$$$ tool.

Anyways, back to the original statement!
I will read posts and say or do nothing and
wham! I will write a visual interpretation
from a subconsious view! Consciously,
I am not aware all the time what I absorb.

How do you think I write my "Starship
Wrong Planet" Narratives! Hmmmmm?



I am not a medical dictionary! Huh? If you have
epislepsy! I then can understand the meds so
I will appologize. I read and write paragraph
by paragraph and go into subconscious pictures.

Sorry for this later revelation in my translation
meter! I didn't know you were epiletic.



I learned how to do my computer hardware and
software this way too! Trial, pictures, errors,
and corrections and walla! success!



Hmmmm? I don't have enough knowledge on who
is a pictorial thinker and who is not. I know that
HFA'rs and PDD,NOS'rs are. As'rs??? Hmmmmm?







I feel there are alot of questions and holes that even
experts needs to understand. But your statements
are very insightful! Thanks!

Sincerely,
Ghosthunter

Hmmmm?
Maturity caused this?
Coping skills caused this?



Hmmmmm? Explain this better? I am curious!
I will not surmise your thoughts! So thanks for
further explanation!



Intuition? If so, a very powerful and insightful tool!
If not? Please explain?



Huh! I don't write code! So please forgive my
confusion!



I am not a programmer! Huh?????????

Hmmmm?
Most confused!
Ghosthunter

Thinking out loud again so pardon any inconsistencies. I understand better now through much introspection.

My thinking manifests itself in different ways on the various levels. Verbal 'noise' which can be switched off in a suitable environment for letting my brain take on a more challenging role (and the environment has to be suitable or I just freeze with too much going on to continue).

1) Casual "walking down the street" Thinking. (alone)

Primarily a verbal stream broken up with short visual series' that usually break my chain of thought. Extreme stress brings on more visual, then overload and meltdown/epileptic fit in extreme cases.

2) Problem solving.

Visual thinking, except for maths and writing, always been that way as far back as I can remember (I may attempt to adapt this to suit my writing though. I never considered that before, strangely. Thanks for the idea Ghosthunter!).

I think of or read about a business model and can assemble a visual normalised data chart from it. I have to write it down quick, even a quick sketch, or I'll lose the creative impetus in the system and have to start again (I lost part of an idea for AI modeling that way. )

3) "Zoned out" relax mode.

A visual stream of chaotic and random memories triggering recall and spontaneous creation of new visuals for problems that usually ends with me isolated from what's happening around me but often helps me come up with radical solutions to programing problems at the wrong moment (e.g. about to sleep) or very rarely a story idea.

4) Social Mode.

Played by relying on verbal triggers for colloquialisms, scripts and expressions I have in my head and know by heart although I usually forget that I've said the same thing before to the same people, and I sound like a walking cliche.

I use very intense visual thinking when I make my ships in CAD. I can picture exactly what every line will look like before I start and know it all in 3d. it helps to sketch crudely the larger projects to remember what I wanted sometimes.

I am a very visual thinker. Of course, this might be even more so because I seem to show symptoms of CAPD. Hence, CAPD might have made my thinking style even more visual than it was intended originally in that I rely now more upon the visual.

I am more visual when I am assessing or pondering something. As I speak, unless I am thinking critically at the same time, images come up in my mind less often. However, my learning process is almost all visual.