[renewiltord]

So, for instance if you were supplied two weird shapes rotated strangely and then asked you if they would fit together like a jigsaw puzzle you can't rotate them and place them together? Man, I can't imagine how this works with assembling furniture.

[majormajor]

When I assemble furniture I do a lot of "pick up this piece and look at it from different angles to see if it matches the piece in the diagram for this step" because yeah, it's generally VERY difficult for me to visualize the result of "look at this from 45 degrees below it" in my head.

It's similarly hard to hold onto a mental picture of a puzzle piece profile I'm missing or such.

[mescaline]

I am, strangely enough, highly spatial and tested off the charts for it when I was younger. I can do exactly what you describe, with a high degree of precision. I do this mainly by elimination, which is likely due to the fact I can't consciously perceive the imagery, but only get a feeling if it is "right" or not.

One way I put it to a visualizer recently was that I am not conscious of seeing the map, but I am definitely operating on the mesh. The way he described it was that he was actively seeing the map, overlayed on the model, as if it were a screen in mind. He waved vaguely to "up here" where it "was".

[daniel-cussen]

Yeah sounds like you are subconciously doing the work 100%, it's just you operate with different subconcious/concious roles and limits. The mental visualization is off bounds for your concious mind.

[sph]

Same, I have aphantasia but I definitely am a visual thinker. The visualization in my mind is quite abstract and far removed from the act of seeing.