This is a thought experiment "Ball on a Table" for detecting whether someone has Aphantasia. What do you see when you perform this experiment?
This is a thought experiment "Ball on a Table" for detecting whether someone has Aphantasia. What do you see when you perform this experiment?
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?
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I don't have aphantasia, but a rather vivid imagination sometimes. Also, a lot of my answers were indirectly influenced by my immediate surroundings:
- What color was the ball? - Red
- What gender was the person that pushed the ball? - Male
- What did they look like? - I only imagined seeing the person up to the waist, approaching the table and giving a push to the ball. I pictured him with social attire.
- What size is the ball? - Tennis ball, but very smooth. It was smack dab in the middle of the table, too.
- What about the table, what shape was it? What is it made of? - Round glass.
A question for those of you who have, or suspect you have aphantasia, how are your dreams like? Can you imagine and "hear" sounds?
how are your dreams like
Pretty sure I dream normally. Can't discern faces but I know I can see things.
Can you imagine and "hear" sounds?
Basically how I function. If I'm thinking of a song I know decently well or heard recently it's like a live show I can control. Just with the lights off.
I recall dreams the same way as I recall real events. There are no actual images or sounds that I can "see" or "hear" in my mind as I think back on the events, but I know I've seen and heard those things. So it's difficult to answer the question. Did I "see" things in my sleep, but remember them only as ideas, or were they just ideas in the dream too? I tend to think it was the former.