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?

  • @TootSweetEnglish
    4•4 hours ago

    Neat!

    spoiler
    • Red. It was rubber.
    • Male.
    • Tall, thin. I don’t remember a face, but he was wearing an old-fashioned formal shirt and sport jacket. The cuff of the shirt was unbuttoned and folded back. He also wore a wide-brimmed black hat. (I’m currently watching an episode of Hell on Wheels which probably influenced that.)
    • Large for an apple, small for a canteloupe.
    • Square, dinner-table-hieight. Dark-stained wood. I’m no woodworker, so I wouldn’t know what kind of wood it was, but I’ve got a couple of bookcases of the same wood and staining.

    Aside from that, I can say it took place in an old cabin and in the background, I saw an open doorway to a… foyer? The door to the outside was open. It was very sunny. And I saw green grass outside.

    And, I knew all those things before I got to the questions. I just had to consult/replay the scene in my head to get all the answers.

    Seems fair to say I don’t have aphantasia.