Do you think visually or verbally?

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Both for me. I voted words because most of my thinking involves analyzing and debating and planning and prepration for the future.... most of that lends itself better to words.

I can also visualize pretty much anything I want. If I need to be creative or I'm fantasizing then I think in pictures.

I think both visually and verbally, I think in many different ways.

I don't know. I've never been anybody else obviously so I don't know how I think differently. I guess I think visually if that's being able to picture something in your mind but I don't really know how unique that is.

I agree with Floyd about the associational links, at least in my brain.

I usually have a verbal monolog running through my head. I ignore it most of the time. It's pretty boring. So it seems I think verbally.

I don't see pictures in my head, and have trouble visualizing things clearly. So that seems to confirm verbal, not picture, right?

The problem is that I 'see' a faint pattern in my head most of the time when I'm thinking about a problem. It's very complex, and seems to be an associational logic 'diagram'. Parts of it fill in as the logic gets established, and it oozes and morphs around until it stabilizes. I can't see it clearly, but I have a sense of where it isn't complete, and focus on those areas, though I don't know what I'm focusing. When it fills in, the problem is actually solved, and all I have to do is 'copy' it out by translating it into language and drawings. It doesn't appear to be delusional <grin>, since I'm an engineer and the solutions get tested. It may just be an artifact and a focussing tool, though.

It's really hard to describe it because it's 'something else', and so we don't have language for it (yet).

I use both methods, sometimes simultaneously, and sometimes I add a third element of music or melody - so I couldn't take your poll.

Perhaps you have Synesthesia (see numbers with colors or see things in roller-coaster geometrical patterns when they are just lists)

I hardly ever think in pictures, I'm mainly a Verbal/Math-Music-Pattern thinker (depending on whether I am involved in a math/music issue or not) and I also "hear" speeches from my memory and can get caught up in hearing in my mind "stimming" music (repeated phrases from favorite parts of songs/symphonies, etc.).

A weird spin on this is that I can make myself "see" my words as I think and also my words and those of others who speak to me in my mind's eye with correct spelling and punctuation left to right as the conversation is going on, although I can turn it off at a will! So maybe that's kinda like thinking in pictures, only the pictures are of letters not objects.

Mostly visually, or with a kind of abstract "resonance". Like 3D structures in my head.

Sometimes I switch to verbal.

I believe most aspies and auties are pattern thinkers, but we do it unconsciously. It seems logical that many NT/Aspie engineers, computer techs, and scientists think in patterns. And the natural tendency to think in patterns, is undoubtedly inherited. It would seem to be a quality of brains geared more toward technical pursuits. The OP should have had patterns as an option in the poll. It's the reason I didn't vote. After being here for a year, this thread is, by far, the most important of any I've participated in. I feel it is absolutely vital that we spectrumites ascertain how we think, and that we do so as soon as is humanly possible. Be nice if it were made into a sticky.

Furthermore, in addition to being primarily pattern thinkers IMO....we think nonlinearly, meaning time and positioning with reference to 3 dimensional space, are foreign to us. We don't limit ourselves, or our thinking to 3 dimensions...nor does time, as conventionally viewed, have very much meaning for many of us.

I believe stimming results not so much from sensory issues, although it does, but even more it may result from having an excess of energy to disperse, after mental excursions into territory unbounded by local space/time restrictions.

Space and time, space/time, are mental categories, convenient for functioning in 3 dimensional social reality. Without those categories framing a natural basis for one's thoughts as well as perceptions, one would be rather lost in a world of people organizing their lives around those categories. There would be nothing for us to anchor to.

Having no anchor, IMO, is what defines us....and separates us. However, I also believe that we on the spectrum, share pattern thinking with technically oriented NTs. And this link is potentially a very powerful bond......that mitigates all our other differences in autistic function.


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Last edited by alba on 06 Sep 2009, 5:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Yeah the same with me!! I am all of an visually thinking and functioning aspie. And Im a fan of you, Your posts is so short and charming, easy to read
I cant read much text, reading photos is way easier and I can spend hours watching videos on YouTube...

I use both, in everyday thinking it's verbal, but when it's too complicated to explain accuratly it automaticly moves over to visualized mode. It helps me see patters I wouldn't be able to "see" verbaly. I think this is shown by how I write, I always spell the way it sounds in my head. (That's why I frequently use double "l" in always and simliar words. ^^)

Mayby this is the communication block, as they say, an image say more then a thousend words, but what happens when you make a picture based upon one word alone? It's doomed to be flawded.
This would explain why aspies are known for using very exact language since we don't expect people to "see" what we mean (we don't do it ourselves either). And why NTs can't seem to comprehend that an aspie-face don't show emotions, if someone says "happy" they get an image in their mind of how someone who's happy looks like, and generaly we don't look like that.

On the other hand I could be completly off, it's 00:40 am here, so my brain isn't with me to 100%. (Or even 75%. ^^) Price to pay for being "social" the night before. ^^

Both. I think in words accompanied by pictures.

I think mainly in pictures.

Yeah, this is for me too. I narrate all my thoughts and talk to other-me because it makes things a lot clearer and I remember my thoughts a lot better. But I do mostly think in pictures. But I'm an artist/designer so a lot of the things I think about HAVE to be in pictures. I don't know how it would even work, otherwise. If you only think verbally, can you even be an artist?

I do both. I probably more than 80% think in word, an the rest is pictures. remembering things and stuff. but otherwise I think i words. Like right now, while I'm typing the words are being read 'aloud' in my head. But for instance say, right now I thought of the number 9, ad I both hard and saw the umber nine It was red.

This is a tough one for me to answer. Let me explain:

I suppose one would say that I think verbally. But I would also classify it as thinking visually because, while I do think in words, it is as if those words are printed on a screen behind my eyes. What I mean is that I can visually see the words in my mind, but I cannot see pictures. For instance, say I were asked to picture my favorite place. I would see the printed screen of words that describe the place (in great detail) but I would be unable to hold a picture of that place in my mind.

The one thing that I never have understood about the way I think is this: If I can see the words in my mind, all laid out nicely and orderly, why can I not get the words to come out that way when I try to speak to a person? The words are right there, but it is as if they are organized in a way that only I understand. That is the most frustrating part of this, I suppose.