[satokema]

There is an ex-pro FPS player that has aphantasia (reports no visualizations either intentional or intrusive) and I would really like to see one of these studies talk to him one time. It seems like an interesting extreme case to poke at.

[romanows]

Spatial imagery (map knowledge) is unaffected, so I can't see what effect aphantasia would have here?

[hinkley]

I had idetic memory until sixteen or seventeen, which is quite late. But over time my ability to visualize things in my head has almost entirely shifted from pictures to shapes. I barely picture things anymore, but I know the space they occupy down practically to the millimeter. I am absolutely the guy you want to pack your car for you when you have to move, because I will get three more boxes into your car.

My kid moved recently, and I looked at his backpack, said this will fit behind the driver’s seat. It did, with about the thickness of a magazine to spare.

I have ADHD, which most people will tell you generally comes with a slight reduction in working memory. Up until ten years ago I would have sworn in court that I had an excellent working memory. Early in my career I was known for tackling big architectural shifts and managing to complete them with only one or two regressions. That’s a hell of a lot of plates to keep spinning, even if you can enter flow state practically on demand like I could.

I know now that I have normal ADHD brain, so how the hell was I doing this? It was a watching of Sherlock Holmes that finally cracked the code. I finally realized that I build mind palaces every time I work a difficult problem - but without pictures, which is why I didn’t know I was doing them. I build them the way a person who was blind from birth would do it. The same way I avoid bumping into walls going through my house in the dark. The same way I know there’s a truck in my blind spot. Each “object” occupies space that I can recall or turn around in my head.

And that’s how I used to shred code into pieces and then reassemble them like making the second build in a set of LEGO.

[srcreigh]

I believe crosshair placement would be harder to memorize/reflect on.

Coaches also often say “see yourself from your opponents POV and be in an unexpected place”. eg royalG valorant guide. That’s just a figure of speech for aphant folks.

[romanows]

I have aphantasia and wasn't seeing how it'd have a particular effect on FPS games, at least the ones I've played.

Crosshair placement for things like leading shots? Or more for building a mental map of where the enemy is likely to poke their head up? I would think these things involve spatial imagery/memory. I do remember putting a tiny piece of post-it note on my monitor to act as a red dot sight in Killing Floor, but my guess is that'd help anyone headshot zombies better, not just us aphantasics.

[srcreigh]

Crosshair placement as in positioning your aim at head level when peeking corners or holding an angle.

I'm decent at it. Struggle more when there's verticality (im sure everybody does though.)

In Valorant, there's often objects to use as guides. But when there's not, I imagine someone with good visual memory could pull up the post-it note of their last fight and reposition off of it. Whereas I'd have to reason my way through it or use muscle memory through lots of practice.