[scotu]

I would start with the fact that not much in the world is either one thing or another, so also with aphantasia I don't think you either "have it" or you don't. One might have varying degrees of it. I feel I can almost visualize a simple shape like a square, but a face is something I'm sure I cannot visualize.

Then I'd say, in my self-diagnosed experience, I can describe things I remember, maybe not in painstaking detail but I can. I'm not able to see an image of the same thing if I close my eyes and try to imagine it.

I feel like the difference is, I can recognize your face if I see it again, but if I need to recall what you look like I get a list of features written in words out of my brain, not an image.

[woopwoop]

Is your typical verbal description of a face you remember as sparse as the one I gave? Are their other things about the face you remember that you cannot put into words, or is everything you remember verbal?

[mod]

It's hard for me to imagine and describe the actual details, but it's not hard for me to say no, that's not correct.

I think with the right vocabulary, and some prompting for details, we could get a lot more out of you.

For instance, you would know the answers to at least some of these questions, I think, and not just matter-of-factly, but from your visualization:

1) Are her features highly unusual? Scar, missing eye, really far-apart eyes?

2) What color is her skin? (Relative answers are fine, like "the same color as mine")

3) What size was her nose? Tiny, average, huge?

4) What shape was her face? Long and tall? Round and cherubic?

5) Was she wrinkly?

6) Was her jawline prominent?

I think with the right vocabulary, I could describe my mom's face. I could certainly sit with a patient enough sketch artist and get a great sketch. I can definitely pick her out of a lineup. But I couldn't describe to you how far her eyes sit from her nose or something. I'd have to see the sketch and give feedback on why it was wrong, I guess.

[scotu]

yeah, I'd say my description could be pretty similar. But when it comes down to sparse descriptions, I think memory also has a role. My memory is not fantastic, so I might have just dropped the memory of eye colors, unless that came up a few times for some reason for me to fix that memory.

But thinking about coming up with an unknown, generic face (GAN style, if you will): I cannot see it. Or something simpler, an apple: very foggy visual+takes a lot of effort to keep seeing the vague blurry image I might be able to come up with.