Do all aspies think in pictures?

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I only get that tracking problem when my eyes are getting too tired to read. It's a reminder to set the book down and go to sleep. It seems like more of a mechanical thing with me though.

I can also read out loud perfectly fine but I won’t be able to comprehend a single thing I’m saying unless I’ve already read the passage before. I can’t take in new information while simultaneously reading out loud.

When I read something silently the voice in my head doesn't literally read the text as if I was reading it out loud. I often completely skip over words or add additional thoughts between sentences. I rarely literally read a sentence word for word in my head. I wonder if this is unusual.

Oh. And I'm also not great at spelling when I don't use spell check. I write everything I post in the word processor because I hate jerks that judge my intellect based on spelling. I'm always forgetting stuff like "their" vs "thier" even though I write them a million times. I don't get it.

I only think in pictures. I grew up thinking everyone did. Now I know why it was so hard for me to communicate with my parents when they used those terrible words.

Poopylungstuffing wrote:
"Whenever I have had to take notes from a meeting or verbal lecture, I have ended up dooding all over the pages...likesay...I would have half the page for the notes and the other half for the doodles....it has been the only way I have been able to stay on track at all in those situations."

Sounds like my entire college career. I could not take notes without drawing pictures associated with the words. I think very visually. When i read, i immediately get mental pictures of the descriptions given, unless the wording is confusing. Say i see the word BAIT written on a sign somewhere... my mind immediately flashes to a can of minnows.... the type my grandfather used when he fished. Every thing i see goes into a mental file like a rolodex. That way i can pull up mental pictures when a word is given. Mah brain is like a big photobucket account. Its hard to even know how to do it any other way.
That is also a reason I look away when someone is explaining something to me. I am building a mental reference for what the person is saying and can become distracted by their eyes.

I think in pictures. For eg I remember faces but forget birthdays and names. Tell me how to do something and I'll likely get it wrong but show me how to do something and I'll remember how to do it forever. I never think in words or numbers. This will explain why I did so badly at school has the teachers don't teach in ways suitable for me to take in so I can remember.

Stupid useless teachers.

I could have been so much more than I am today if it wasn't for their uselessness.

This is me to a tee.



And so is this.

And Merle - yeap, I'm a lazy tracker too!!

wow, I wish I had someone to blame for my shortcomings!

I can't say I only think in pictures. But thinking in words requires a conscious effort, whereas there are always have elaborate pictures rushing through my head.

I think in pictures all the time -for a long time I didn't realize others didn't (but then, I never bothered to ask how other people think ^^U.)

Do predominately visual thinkers find it easy to visualise things? Does anybody know if Einstein ever called himself a visual thinker? Could his envisionment of the spacetime fabric of space be a fruit of visual thinking?

Last edited by SilverProteus on 01 Apr 2008, 1:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I wonder why it is that some people who think in pictures have such a tough time drawing what they see in their minds.

i was talking to Flakey about this subject last night....he is a very visual thinker, but he is always instructing me to draw the things that he sees in his mind because he has very poor drawing skills.
He can make 3-d renderings out of polymer clay of stuff though

i think in concepts that translate into pictures that i then try to translate into words. something is always lost in the translation, unfortunately.

if

if i were a sea creature
i would be
a
starfish

caught on your wave

moving
maybe
towards the shore
or out

to sea

if i were an air creature
i would be
a
glider

caught on your breeze

hoping
hoping
you don't change your mind
but you do

all the time

*
*
*

but if i were a sea creature
i would be
a starfish

allison~



The Wall

there’s a wall between
me

and

paradise

I know
cause I built it myself

how do you topple a wall
that has grown
so tall
insurmountably high
like the summer sky

there’s a wall between
me
and
you

and this I didn’t built
alone

it’s worse than the wall
at paradise

this one is twice as strong

allison~

Analog vs. Digital

Probably the wrong comparison words, but some times that's how it strikes me.

I, an aspie, am visual. I turned it into a career actually. My wife, who is not, stores the info in her head completely different. I remember in pictures, sounds, smells, colors... She remembers precise info like birthdates, account numbers, phone numbers, she can recall a phone number some one told her over an hour ago. I can't remember a name after 15 seconds without creating a pictographic reference of a letter in their name, combined with other visual data. And just creating that much data and storing it in a way I can recall it takes longer than 15 seconds (I'm a disaster at parties...especially without name tags). Oh, I'll remember their face 15+ years later, but the name data without visual aid is lost pretty instantly.

Clocks for instance. She prefers digital. She looks at it and know exactly what time it is. I look at it and I see a number....but I have to then translate that in my head to an actual (as I see it) point in time. I prefer Analog. I see a clock, the shape the hands make together and that shape translates instantly to a visual array of images as to what the time of day is (especially if I am not near a window) or what I should be doing at that point in time.

Google maps is another good one. Say we are going some where we have not been before. She will go to Google maps, enter in her address and read through a page of turn by turn instructions and be good to go. I really don't know how she does that. I go to Google maps, and ignore the turn by turn instructions (as they make no sense to me any way) and look at the map, download and print the raw map AND satellite map, "read" it over remembering landmarks, building shapes and colors, street names by pictographic references I either make up or already have, and then I am good to go (but I take the maps with me of course). But wait! Some one calls and states "Hey, we are going there too! Can you give us directions?" to which I reply "Hang on, I'll get my wife..." because my (attempt at) translation backwards into words that they will understand will most likely not work.

So the streams of words flowing through my head are mostly imagery interlaced with words, but even the letter of the words at that point are somewhat pictographic. As for the words, I tend to use phrases and words that, like in the diagnosis, tend to make me sound arrogant and/or strange... But that's because some words seem to strike in my head with greater impact and therefore, make sense to use. So is this all related to Asperger's? I think so, but we all find our own individual ways adjust and cope in our attempt to understand the world around us. It seems that for all of us, it takes some kind of effort beyond the "usual".

I think entirely in words. Thinking in pictures isn't an area of strength for me.

Do normal people think in words?

Good Question.

I do think in images.

I think it is rather independant of the personality, as NT's use pictures/words as well.