What is visual thinking?

Post Reply New Topic

We share some characteristics. I am able of thinking visually quite vividly but I am face blind, unable to read body language most of the time and well spatially impaired.

Anyway, I remember that when I was a kid, I was even more of a visual thinker, and I used to picture my mind as a spaceship with larges tanks in which genderless and faceless adults in foetal position where, and they were linked to the core of the spaceship and they were my "levels of thoughts".

I tend to believe that everyone think the same way, especially since one of my friends has exactly the same way of thinking, however, I remember that I had asked a lot of questions since I was 7 about the mind and the way other people think, it was disturbing to me because when one speak, you cannot determine how they think, I thought that some of them had only one thought at a time.

And I still cannot tell whether this is true or not but some people tend to react pretty badly when you tell them that you can visualise thoughts or have more than one level of thoughts (I also hear my thoughts and when I have a music in my head, I cannot concentrate on them so I have to use only my visual thinking which make it harder to communicate but feels better), apparently, to some people it means having halucinations, which is wrong.

So, I guess that since no one experience what other experience, we all tend to think that everyone think the same way.

I know many people who can think visually, it does not seem to be so strange, though they are not truly NTs for some of them. I think that people who think only in words (I mean, sounds, because I can visualise words and that's different as well) or only in picture or more rare, and I hope that people who have only one level of thoughts are rare as well, they do not know what they are missing.

I'm definitely a visual thinker and it actually does show but it sometimes leads me to daydreaming which is pretty much the downside of my visual thinking.

If I weren't a visual thinker, I'd probably freak out.

I'm visual thinker too. I've always knew that I think in pictures, but I couldn't organise my pictures/thoughts. I read a lot about it, and books that helped me are Temple Grandin's "Thinking in pictures" and Ron Davis's "Gift of Dyslexia".

When I'm reading it has to be something concrete, tangible; when I read something abstract, like philosophy, I feel blind, I can't make pictures and I just can't think about it. Words are meaningless to me unless they represent something concrete, like nouns house or dog. I fight with prepositions and verbs like be, have, can, articles a/an, etc.

A little bit ironic, but I have face blindness. I need to see a person at least ten times to remember her/him or a person has to looke a bit different from the others (hair, glasses, clothes).

Last edited by silbel on 30 Jan 2011, 5:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Do those of you who are visual thinkers have really vivid dreams & remember them? I often do, and when I tell people about my dreams they kind of look at me in disbelief. I used to keep a dream journal that I shared online. One friend actually accused me of making the dreams up, he couldn't believe that I would dream and remember such detailed things. I was shocked the day I found out that some people dream in B&W. I have never done that. It's always full color.

The same. I dream an "omnibus" of stories, it can have "cuts" or I can change perspectives and characters in my dreams. Dreams are always in full color, they were only three times black and white, and even then they were like a movie.

Visual thinking doesn't have to be in pictures. Temple Grandin popularized that image. But people can think visually in words (printed or signed). I know someone who thinks in colors.

I've also heard even most nonautistic people think visually.

As far as dreaming in black and white... I doubt that ever happened before black and white photography, film, and television.

I think visually, but I also have all the other senses represented. I can easily imagine most sensory impressions. Whenever I think of a thing, I usually visualize the thing. I can also visualize words, but it's like a picture of a sign or a newspaper.

I can visualize a scene to any degree of detail. If I want to flesh out one part, I can focus in, rotate the scene and look at it from any angle. I can imagine the temperature, sounds, sensations (like a wind), smells, but I have to focus in on those to imagine them.

For some reason, I never learned to draw very well. I did get into drawing maps of fictional places I invented during high school and my 20s, but I stopped doing that for some reason.

I have trouble thinking in words. If I want to think through ideas that require complex language, I either end up thinking "out loud" or writing. I can think in words, but it's very slow and maybe a sentence or two, and I end up repeating the thought rather than moving on to another.

When I write, I try to describe every detail of every thing from every angle I can think of. This tends to mean that I can get very wordy very quickly, and I feel dissatisfied if I miss something that I think is important. I suspect a lot of these details are trivial, but I have a hard time judging.

I was a terrible writer until the first time I had access to a word processor, at which point my writing was apparently very good. Prior to that, I had not learned typewriters and my handwriting was sufficiently awful that I didn't like to write much at any given time. This meant I talked out the majority of my ideas by myself, and they were primarily in my head. Using computers, I think, started to hone my ability to translate, express and communicate my thoughts, whereas prior to that I had more difficulty.

I do think most (like 60%) of people regardless of neurology think visually.

Me too. I thought about how my brain processes words: it's like I have image viewer instead of word processing software.



I force myself to think in words, and, for now, the best way for me is to run a dialog in my head. I hope thad won't end up with a second voice in my head.



I write too, but it comes up poorly - the words can't describe the picture with all details that I see.



It helps me to see whole text on the monitor: I can always read it again i rewrite it.

I blame the way I write on a combination of hyperlexia and primarily nonverbal thinking. I also prefer to focus on details rather than generalities. If I say something that sounds like a generality, it's probably because I am referring to (in my mind) a ton of specific examples.

I can never describe all the details I see, but I try to be exhaustive.

Does that mean this whole thread would be relative to 40% or 60%of the population? I forget the number.

It always seems like a hallmark of being autistic to think of pictures and I feel like an odd one out but maybe it's more autistic to not think in pictures?

I found this interesting: http://www.donnawilliams.net/notthinkinginpics.0.html

None of my problems are as severe as what was being described in that but it was interesting to see it was also commented they couldn't see a whole cat as well, haha!

I think Anbuend made a post elsewhere that listed numerous kinds of thinking, not just the few documented elsewhere.

It can be pictures but it's almost always an animations. The more detail I have on the image I'm thinking of, the more 3 dimensional and fluid the picture/video/motion is. Some things that I have to make up in my head and/or have limited information on are like quick snap shots and move around in different angles like my brain is trying to piece it together some how.

And with words too, although not constantly, if I hear a sentence or sometimes think/speak a sentence I'll see the sentence play out in my head like subtitles basically or I'll usually see 3 letters at a time and move cross the word. Sometimes the letters take different shapes.

With metaphors I'm not too bad at understanding them but I always get a literal image/video of them in my head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcsPRBkZj-M

This confuses me. I was asked a while ago if I thought "in pictures". I assumed everyone thinks in pictures?

You would know if you are a visual thinker. Some people who are visual thinkers do not have a inner monologue which is the voice inside your head but its not a determining factor

Visual thinkers have a better understanding of visual and spatial diagrams and settings.

I know, that i am a visual thinker and have always known this. I usually need a visual representation or a drawing to understand math or how something works. My memory is 80% visual and 20% verbal. I am a decent artist.

While most people can see images in their head, visual tinkers a Have a superior visual understanding and memory.

For example. When a non visual thinker is asked to think of a chapel, they think of a generic chapel but a visual thinker will think of all the chapels and churches they have seen.

When you hear spoken language do you also SEE the language? Like if someone says some words I'll literally see the words in my head. Or the words will combine with other images/objects depending on the context and content of the sentence being spoken.

No, i have to translate the spoken words into a picture. If someone said to me "the cat scratched the dog in the face" i need to visually process a angry house cat scratching a labrador golden retriever dog in the face.