Why are we visual thinkers if language is our strength?

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Same here.

language is a very often used way to lie and manipulate. it can be used to think, to coordinate - as weapon.

This is one of the few things about myself I could depict accurately so others can understand how my mind works...

I am definitely a visual learner, in school my best subject was always English, specifically relating to grammar, but I was also editor-in-chief of both my high school and junior college newspapers. I also used to be in spelling bees way back in the day.

For me, it's very simple. When I think of a word, that word pops up on my mind's "screen". It's black Times New Roman, bold, and there it is just like the first time I saw the word in a book or dictionary. And when I mean just like it, I mean exactly; there are words I learned from my spelling workbook in 4th and 5th grade from the challenge section, and I can spell those words today because I can remember seeing them for the first time.

I'm not sure if that helps anybody else or not, to be honest I used to think that other visual people saw it exactly the same way. I think though that those of us who are visual thinkers strong in language are probably simply able to "see" the words and sentences. I am able to access my mind as a thesaurus at times, words just flashing before my eyes until I run out of possibilities.


While we're sort of on the subject, I can also use this ability to solve any addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division in my head; the only difference is, instead of having a "screen" I am picturing myself writing it down on a piece of paper. It's pretty neat, but this one in particular used to get me in trouble when teachers would ask me to show my work and I explained I had done it in my head.

I don't have difficulties with language, but find that when I think about things visually I often understand them far better than when I think (or hear) about them verbally.

I am not a visual thinker; I think in words, spoken words. I actually have a lot of trouble visualizing things.

i do this too...

i cant really remember for english words... but i read through a few foreign language dictionaries when i was like 9 or 10 and can still pull the picture of the word and remember which of my dictionaries that i found the word in (sometimes a page number with surrounding words too).

sometimes a word is simply pasted in my collage... like on a ripped piece of paper in some sort of font. but i also have other symbols that are incorporated into the collages as well, which aide more to the emotive side of the meanings for my pictures.

on a side note.... iv'e always been fairly good at spelling when i write (typing at the speed of thought is sometimes different) yet growing up; i distinctly remember being pissed off because i was always the first out of a spelling-B competition, where i would have to spell without having a visual representation in front of me. now that i'm older, i am better at spelling in my head but it's always A LOT easier for me to determine whether something is spelled wrong if it is written in front of me.

I am very visually oriented. I design complex machines and will map them out in my head before I create the CAD model on the computer. I am quite good with the written word but frequently crash and burn with the spoken word. I hate talking in the phone because there is nothing visual happening. I am clueless when it comes to body language but can verbalize better in person than on the phone.

Yeah, I didn't really mention this part, but I never actually did well with any of those spelling bees, I was just a whole heck of a lot smarter than the oafs I went to school with at the time.

I process, internally, about equally well with language and with visual - and I will say that I am extremely proficient with each. However - not only am I very very emotion non fluent - I have another flaw. I can learn mathematics: but I learn when the formulae is connected with a personally owned concept. Equations hanging in the vacuum of space are of small use to me. math comes to me, but not naturally.


the above post is PSOT!! !!

This has come up several times before and I still cant seem to figure out if I am "visual".I do tend to see pictures when someone is talking about something concrete but It is hard to know if I am doing this all the time or if it just happens because I am looking for it, when this topic comes up.I know I have always been very "wordy" and was in love with Greek letters and sign language but have a horrible memory when I am trying to "access" specific names/numbers I know I have heard or read.

I dont do well with creating a full picture of a scene when asked to visualize something,just get fuzzy details of part of the environment.But when I am reading it is like watching a movie.I dont see the words the words are pictures of "things" or "feelings" .I am not sure how I process "concepts" in words but I do.It is to hard and hurting my brain.good night.

I don't do this, but I do remember these words and pictures I had when I learned to read in school we had, very vividly (and I still have the schoolbooks we used then, so I came across them a few months ago and noticed it were the right pictures in my head)

I'm a visual person, studying literature (I don't like it but I want to teach and need a diploma, no insurmountable difficulties doing it, only very bored. In fact I'm much better in maths, computerscience, etc.)

During my studies, I noticed that I can't grasp concepts that have no visual representation: new words, or words without a specific meaning, or sentences that are a little hollow (some professors excel in that) and even entire texts can be completely unintelligible. It costs me hours or even days to study these classes, cause I have to 'decipher' it until it has a 'real' (and thus visually representable) meaning.

It's the same in life, everything that has a factual, materialised, substantial (and therefor a visual encodable) meaning I can understand and cope with. For more abstract things I have a system of shape, colours, frequency, sound, temperature, intensity, texture, etc diagram in my head that
helps to deal with non-excisting(unsubstantial) information.

The more people understand this system, the better I'm able to communicate with them. For people who can't understand my system, it's hard to transmit anything at all, because my sentences (who carry this system somehow) won't contain any meaning for them, just as their
(mostly extremely verbal) sentences won't have any meaning for me.

It is in fact some kind of translation, and with a lot of practise you master this translation (from visual to verbal) properly. And when learning new things it first has to pass the basic (for me visual) stage before it can have it's place in the verbal context. (This also makes translations from one language to another difficult when I lack the visual concept in the other language (need for use of 'description'), or easy when both languages have a clear and similar visual representation.

I agree.