Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by carver 810 days ago
It seems that Aphantasia does not globally bin into two groups, since I don't fit in either.

By my rough count of Figure 2 tests, where Derek is at 0 to Loren at 6 (ignoring F), I have about 3.5 atypical responses.

My experience with Figure 2:

A) I can flip between cone and weird triangle, saw the cone first

B) I see it as if someone placed identical cat stickers on the drawing. I can intellectually understand the perspective, how the upper-right one is supposed to be bigger, but don't experience it that way.

C) I see that there is an implicit rectangle (to me it looks slightly wider than tall). But the color doesn't "spread" to the middle, it's just like 2A -- a boundary in the surrounding shapes implicitly extends into the empty space to form a rectangle shape.

D) It takes minimal, but non-zero effort to see the vase

E) It's trivial to flip between the two orientations of the cube

F) skipped

G) I don't understand what I'm looking for here. I see clouds, sky, and a silhouette with a tree. Is there a face in it somewhere? I can see the smiley face on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia

4 comments

> It seems that Aphantasia does not globally bin into two groups, since I don't fit in either.

I believe you’re correct, since I commonly see it presented as a spectrum. https://aphantasia.com/study/vviq/

For G) I'm seeing something akin to the Moon falling in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.

Basically a face staring at the tree from above.

Fascinating. Thanks for the clue. It's the most complete blank for me of all the tests. I looked up the reference image, but still cannot see it in figure 2G. I can't even guess at where the eyes/nose/mouth are in the clouds.
The two dark splotches above the tree are the eyes. The nose is to the right of the lower splotch, below the higher splotch. The forehead to the left.
Ahah! I see it now, thanks.
For whatever it’s worth, I have Aphantasia, and share your experiences exactly.
I also have aphantasia and ALSO share these experiences exactly. That seems a bit beyond coincidence.
yeah, I think some of their example stimuli aren't the greatest in that figure. There are definitely some better perspective illusions online. I'm not sure if I really see the Neon Spreading Illusion in C either; maybe it's spreading a bit, haha.