[ux-app]

> have an excellent sense of direction. I'm excellent at learning maps in computer games.

That's interesting. I wonder how your mind has learned to compensate. Maps are such visual things, you must be tapping into some other brain areas to store/retrieve this information.

> When I remember traumatic experiences I don't visualize them, I remember the feeling, the shame or the guilt or the embarrassment.

hmm, interesting. Maybe this part of my personality isn't related to the aphantasia.

[SaidinWoT]

There's actually already a study on spatial reasoning and aphantasia: https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...

Basically, aphantasiacs tend to do just as well at spatial reasoning tasks as people with imagery, but tend to be somewhat slower and do not exhibit the gender gap that has been identified in the broader population.

I'm aphantasiac as well, and can identify with some of the experiences you've mentioned in this thread, and not at all with others. My spatial reasoning is great, and I'm a singer who has no problem at all with singing along to songs - if they're sufficiently regularly structured, even singing along with the chorus the second time it happens in a song I've never heard before. However, like you, I cannot replay sounds in my head. Memories are easily put behind me.

We're clearly very early in understanding what impact aphantasia has on people. It's a fascinating topic, and always interesting to teach people about.

[vidarh]

A map is just a visual representation of spatial relationships, and often a poor one because it's from a fixed vantage point that is certainly not well suited to visual translation into what you see at a street level.

When I look at a map, I rarely try to remember what it looks like (I couldn't visualise it anyway) - I remember directions and distances relative to other places.