Thinking in Pictures as Opposed to God Knows What Other Way

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I have heard people describe their inner thoughts as being words. I have also heard it described as being pictures.

This whole thing about "thinking in pictures" is nonsense. Everyone does it, and they're not just "pictures", they are far more complex and made up of many different kinds of mental contents. Snapshots holding together various forms of sensory awareness in one little bundle of associations and ideas.

This "symptom" is just something that a very stupid doctor must have noticed in an autistic person (big surprise there, it's in all people), and then every time they assessed another autistic person, they'd try to find out if he could think in pictures too, which he obviously could (will the surprises never end?) and then this idea somehow became accepted in some important medical circle, which naturally meant that all other NT doctors would be under a social obligation to mindlessly accept it as a concrete fact.



Words are pictures (in the same sense as my first paragraph). I'm starting to believe that every human thinks the same way but the NTs ability to think at all is extremely limited, which is why they may only be capable of thinking in very simple pictures and symbols like words, rather than full scale thoughts with detailed imagery attached to various abstract concepts and emotions.

It seems that the vast majority of their "thinking" takes place socially rather than mentally, like their thoughts and beliefs are determined by social factors rather than mental ones. They use the collective as their mind? The herd itself is their brain? Something is true to them because it is commonly accepted by the hive, not because they have any personal understanding of the issue on an individual level.

This sounds like I'm just calling them "sheep" or whatever but that's really not what I mean, I think their brains are literally wired differently to work this way, and it's not that they don't use their brains at all, it's just that most of their brain power is being used to think on a social level rather than on a truly mental level. We are the opposite. Although of course there are many degrees of this kind of thinking between them and us, even NTs have their "introverts".

While we all "think in pictures", I think that NTs use them sparingly and rarely, as it may be a strain on them, and most of their "thinking" comes from a kind of social map that they can internally "feel" in some way, rather than visualise, as though groping around a maze in the dark... Well, that's more a description of how using that kind of thinking feels for us. Perhaps it's not so dark for NTs, or at least they have about a billion really long arms to feel around with, and can navigate easily by touch because they are used to being blind.

Sorry, really convoluted metaphor.

But yeah, I think they can internally feel some kind of scale model of their social environment (I suppose we all can to more or less of a degree), and most of their "thinking" comes from feeling around in it. Deciding what to believe in a certain situation comes from trying to grope the right part of this structure, to find out what the socially correct thing to believe is.

Or in other words, we look at visual/auditory/emotional mixtures of ideas, they look at people and their connections without necessarily visualizing much.

Basically our way of thinking (really the only way of thinking) is so different to what the unthinking masses are used to, that they believe it is defective, in spite of the fact that it is a highly developed version of what they use to occasionally think in words. Their own limited capacity for actual thought has made them believe that their little social thing is what thinking is. It is hard to teach an idiot that he is wrong when he is convinced that he is the teacher and is 100% certain that he is right just because his own teacher said so. You can't really reason with people who are not used to using reasoning as the determining factor behind their beliefs.

This is also quite interesting when you think of the NTs need to write everything down while figuring something out, like in math, while some people don't need to do that at all. NTs do most of their thinking on the outside? The symbols and people outside of them are used in place of the bulk of their internal thought processes?

Yeah that part is a stretch, but there may be some relation.

And I keep forgetting about these damn noisy advertisements and THE ACCOMPANYING RAGE!! !!

I thought of this as soon as I woke up and I find that somehow, thinking is very similar to dreaming. <---just adding this, haven't read all replies yet, as I just woke up.

Maybe the nonautistic introvert is merely an autistic person who learned to pick up body language and stuff while in infancy for whatever reason

This whole thing about "thinking in pictures" is nonsense. Everyone does it, and they're not just "pictures", they are far more complex and made up of many different kinds of mental contents. Snapshots holding together various forms of sensory awareness in one little bundle of associations and ideas.

Please read this as intended... while confrontational, it is not combative.

I would like to point out that this is a very totalitarian way to address your point. It also comes across as arrogant. How can you, with any authority or surety tell me what goes on in my head or how I think?

I will save you some time and answer for you: You can't. That is part of why there are so many issues with diagnostics and treatment of mental issues, because ALL information that we have is anecdotal.

When one makes a statement that includes the word, EVERYONE, the entire statement negated if there are any exceptions. A person born blind will have no visual cues to build cognitive imagery with. One of my best friends was lucky enough to be one of the test subjects for the optic nerve camera implant. We have actually discussed this very thing. (This topic is more common than you would think.) His memories and thought processes were not imaged based. He had nothing to build that imagery with.

You stated that words are pictures. I disagree. Words are sounds - audio symbols used to quantify our experiences in the world. Verbal communication uses words. There are African tribes that have no system or writing, but they still use words. Even in America, there are recorded words that don't involve visual representation - braille for instance is a written form of language that has no visual component for those that it is meant for. Were words a visual construct, Hellen Keller would not have been able to learn any form of communication whatsoever.

This next statement is pretty much a computer metaphor, because it is an apt one. My native thought form is not pictures. It is words. I have the capability to recall experiences in exquisite visual detail, but I have to "switch modes." I also have the ability to build a piece of gear in my head through visualization, down to the measurements, and to visualize the scripts I have written long before we set up the cameras... but my default mode is words, not images. My natural mode of though is words. Unlike what my NT friends have described, I don't hear my own voice in my head. (I believe that would be creepy... I sound like charlie brown at age 40) However, my thoughts are words. I CAN visualize, but this is an acquired skill, not a natural mode of thought.

So, please don't speak for us all with the word Everyone.

This whole thing about "thinking in pictures" is nonsense. Everyone does it, and they're not just "pictures", they are far more complex and made up of many different kinds of mental contents. Snapshots holding together various forms of sensory awareness in one little bundle of associations and ideas.

This "symptom" is just something that a very stupid doctor must have noticed in an autistic person (big surprise there, it's in all people), and then every time they assessed another autistic person, they'd try to find out if he could think in pictures too, which he obviously could (will the surprises never end?) and then this idea somehow became accepted in some important medical circle, which naturally meant that all other NT doctors would be under a social obligation to mindlessly accept it as a concrete fact.