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As a dataset of one, I can tell you that I am aphantasic and have a lot of internal monologue from multiple voices (No I'm not schizophrenic). I also have very strong auditory memory and can, as other have said, "play songs in my head." Though translating those imagined songs to the real world is less then steller in my case. I can also fairly acutely imagine a touch/feeling. Just for a little insight into my internal thoughts, most of my thought processes are highly object oriented. Conjuring up a picture of a chair isn't really neccessary when you have an understanding of the chair object and its properties. I understand how it would work with an image of a chair, and it does seem like it might have some advantages at times, but I don't think it is necessary for me to "see" the chair to know how it functions and its basic spacial properties. Nor do I think that it's neccessary someone with a very vivid pictorial imagination. What I do have a hard time understanding is that people can conjure up smells and taste in their imagination. I do neither of those, but it sounds really quite intriguing to me. I've often wondered what it would be like to try to imagine a new recipe and get an imaginary sampling before the attempt. To circle back to your original question, I don't think the absence of one of the modes of imagination necessarily enhances another. I don't even think there are complimentary modes of imagination as you put it. Nor do I think the fidelity of those modes are indicators of intelligence, ability, or personality. I also don't think they are indicative of actualizing particular thoughts into the real world, or is really a measure of anything other than the somewhat uniqueness of the individual human experience. Lastly I don't think this short list if 5 senses begins to describe how humans actually think. Consider that there's probably more hidden subprocess that our brain is doing for thought then using these particular 5 sense modes of imagination. We obviously are not as aware of them because they don't have a real world translation in most cases. For instance, the way people memorize stuff isn't exactly a relational database, but it's kind of close. What exactly is that process called and why don't assign that a value on the imagination scale. As another example, large tree structure can somewhat represent, "a good sense of direction" but again we don't assign that an imagination scale either. Limiting the reaearch to the 5 senses is great for understanding how those processes work, but it is only a tiny baby step to further understanding how human thought works on the whole. |