| > If you think you have aphantasia, you almost certainly do. I took the VVIQ online and it concluded that I "probably don't" have aphantasia (but merely "You do not have a vivid imagination"). Basically it seems that unless you're 0's across the board, you can form some part of some image in your mind, and thus don't meet their definition. Then again, the only one I rated above a 1 was "gait", and that's as much auditory as visual, so I'm not sure I believe them. I took another online test which asked me to look at a 3D shape made of blocks, and then later compare others (drawn from different angles) and determine which was the same, without referencing the original. It was an easy test, but to me it had little to do with visual imagery. I just remembered the original shape as sounds (far easier than remembering a shape!), and then picked which of the others sounded the same. That's the fundamental problem I see with tests that try to figure out how a person thinks. You try to invent a test which you believe can only possibly be solved in one way -- but people who don't think that way already have a lifetime of experience living and thinking, so surely they've developed other mechanisms by now. It's like saying "I know how to test if someone has two legs: we'll put the finish line 100 meters over there! Then anyone missing a leg won't be able to get to it." Just because you don't have two legs doesn't mean you can't get around just fine. I'm absolutely sure there are people who solved the block problem visually, and tactilely, and other ways I can't even guess at. I think "aphantasia" is all wrong. It implies visual thinking is normal, and "non-visual" is the only alternative. We don't have a special word for "people who don't have blue eyes". We say directly what color we mean. |