This is more of me trying to understand how people imagine things, as I almost certainly have Aphantasia and didn’t realize until recently… If this is against community rules, please do let me know.
The original thought experiment was from the Aphantasia subreddit. Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Aphantasia/comments/g1e6bl/ball_on_a_table_visualization_experiment_2/
Thought experiment begins below.
Try this: Visualise (picture, imagine, whatever you want to call it) a ball on a table. Now imagine someone walks up to the table, and gives the ball a push. What happens to the ball?
Once you're done with the above, click to review the test questions:
- What color was the ball?
- What gender was the person that pushed the ball?
- What did they look like?
- What size is the ball? Like a marble, or a baseball, or a basketball, or something else?
- What about the table, what shape was it? What is it made of?
And now the important question: Did you already know, or did you have to choose a color/gender/size, etc. after being asked these questions?
As an aphantasia person myself, it is honestly mind boggling that people can visualise things that aren’t there. Like that must be so much effort on things that aren’t needed.
Suppose it means you can just have a wank and not need porn though.
At my desk eating. So the table was my desk and I imagined a white ball that suddenly moved and fell down to the floor. I didn’t imagine a person pushing it because that wasn’t part of the deal. However when you asked the other stuff then yeah I could imagine up anything else in the same scene.
i could answer all these questions except the gender, what does that count for
(it was a white reflective crystal ball being pushed off a half-cloth-covered wooden table by a wizard with a tall hood, beard, and tits)
I’ve put some effort into improving my visualization since learning about aphantasia. Upon reading the prompt, I was able to imagine a colorless ball, but with shading to indicate a 3D shape, like a preview render in a CAD program. That’s progress! It didn’t have a size inherently. For the table, I could picture a white, rectangular plane hovering in a black void. If it was a normal dinner table size, then the ball was something like a softball or basketball.
And that’s it. That exhausted my ability to visualize. No person, no push, no motion. Best I can do is to see the white rectangle after the ball has rolled off of the edge.
What does it mean if I already knew the answer to every question except what the person looked like?
The ball was red, like a red rubber ball. The person was sort of indistinct from the neck up, it was more like my view was focused on the ball itself and didn’t see a face, but it was a man, wearing a white shirt and dark tie, and dark pants. The ball was about the size of a baseball, wasn’t completely smooth and shiny, sort of a matte with a slight grippy texture. Table was square, wood, like a medium brown color. The ball rolled off the table and bounced a few times.
All these decisions were automatic when reading the prompt, it’s what I saw.
I’ve just become aware of aphantasia myself, I have a few family members who have it apparently. I was talking to my BIL about it the other day, I was saying how I’m a big fan of reading, but I mostly read nonfiction. He said he doesn’t read much, mostly biographies, but fiction doesn’t do much for him because he can’t picture anything in his head. I can picture everything in great detail when I read fiction. Its interesting because our minds work very differently
I imagined the same red, baseball-ish sized rubber ball. Not sure why that’s my default for “ball.”
The ball had no color, the person had no gender or specific form other than vague shapes (the hand and arm being the most visualized), no memory of deciding any specific clothing, the ball was the most fleshed out part where it was the size of a softball. The table was square with vaguely wood coloring. The size was about 2 ft by 2ft maybe 3 ft high.
I did not already know most and I did not retroactively change them. I gave answers as I remembered my visualization.
The ball was blue and kind of glossy, clearly made of plastic.
The person was a scruffy looking femme character in black and white. I just subbed in a character from a comic post above this one.
The ball was about 50% bigger than a baseball.
The table was a round coffee table with that fake wood texture paneling you see on cheap furniture, you know the type? It was a muted brown color.
I did know that I was probably expected to visualize details on the described object, but not the person or table!
- What color was the ball? Grey.
- What gender was the person that pushed the ball? No idea, was there even a person? Couldn’t really get it to move more than just rolling along.
- What did they look like? Se above, I’ve no idea as I couldn’t really image a person.
- What size is the ball? Like a marble, or a baseball, or a basketball, or something else? Like a palintar in lord of the rings (commonly known as a “seeing stone” I believe?).
- What about the table, what shape was it? What is it made of? Couldn’t image a table, it just kinda layed in the emptyness.
TDLR, can’t really image stuff and really can’t image people, who especially not faces.
Wait a second.
- The ball had no color at all
- The person who pushed the ball didn’t even exist. It just got pushed by some invisible force. Naturally, they didn’t have an appearance.
- The ball was like… Small I guess?
- The table had no properties at all.
Do people really usually have a more vivid picture in their heads? It’s always just concepts with me. I’m confused.
Do people really usually have a more vivid picture in their heads?
I can’t speak for others, but I do if they’re concepts I’ve encountered before. I have “default” visualizations of things that are changed if the description warrants it.
I also had the “I spent 23 minutes designing this scene in blender” impression of the ball, table, and disembodied hand. The table was made of light grey, the ball was made of light grey, and the hand was made of light grey
Yeah, same with me. But I knew the ball was pushed and rolled to the edge of the table and then fell, so I feel like I got the most relevant bit.
Tbh I’ve never been good at visualising faces, recognising people I know, retracing a route I’ve taken etc. This just feels like one of those things I’ve never really been great at.
- What happens to the ball?
It slowly rolled toward the edge but stopped before falling to the ground. The path was somewhat eccentric because of the texture of the ball.
- What color was the ball?
Yellow
- What gender was the person that pushed the ball?
Male
- What did they look like?
Green and white track suit (why? IDK), mid 60’s Italian, chubby
- What size is the ball? Like a marble, or a baseball, or a basketball, or something else?
It was one of those foam Nerf bullets, so about the size of a shooter marble
- What about the table, what shape was it? What is it made of?
It was that black IKEA table where the four metal legs screw into the corners. About 6ft by 3ft.
- And now the important question: Did you already know, or did you have to choose a color/gender/size, etc. after being asked these questions?
The entire scene sprung into my head at once after reading that someone interacted with the ball
Both my partner and I answered the same.
The ball was the size of a tennis ball, no colour.
The person had no gender or any distinguishing features.
The table was a standard kitchen table.
Neither of us knew what the test was about.
A colorless ball is pushed by a non existent person and rolls slightly at a linear speed and then ceases to exist. The ball had no size and I don’t remember the table existing.
Color - none (I hate not being able to visualise color as I hate doing 3d texturing work in blender and I would like to be able to enjoy it)
Gender - ambigious
Look - lack of info
Ball - unpleasant to touch, got pushed from the top, palm sized, it made a sound, the scene looped before the ball fell off the table, in the next iterations the ball was made of foam, and lacked sound, the camera spunn around the table.
Table - four legs, square, standard height.Huh. The person was off-frame. And I’m pretty sure i retroactively chose a color for the ball.
I think I might have a black-and-white imagination.
Small tennis sized ball whitish color on a whitish classic rectangular kitchen table. But the table is zoomed in quite much at the start so you only see the overside of it.
No specific gender, very neutral. Like a videogame character with few colors, white mostly. Now the scene is zoomed back to let you see the person walk up to the table.
Did not know. But when i read the others answers mine turned into a 1990 MTV music video where objects are immutable but displayed in lots of different ways, colors, textures, … I also exploded it when the pwrson touched the ball for fun.
I have worked a lot in video games and scientific visualisation, so the test looks like something I’d make in a 3D engine I guess, least information possible to show the important things, the ball etc.
I can imagine and see about anything, colour, texture, forms, people, movements, but the more details the more zoomed in it gets. I can imagine you as lofi-girl looking at your phone, but expeession like “what the crap did I just read” imagining you reading this for example.
HTH
