Are Your Thoughts Mostly Detailed Or Diagrammatic?

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By "diagrammatic" I mean fuzzy and abstract. I've read and heard that a lot of people with disorders on the autism spectrum have incredibly detailed visual thoughts, for example, thinking of a car and basically seeing most of its parts, as in a catalog. I don't think that way; my thoughts have always been a bit more visual than verbal, but my visual thoughts are more often than not consist of vague ideas of spatial information.

Are your visual thoughts more detailed and concrete or fuzzy and abstract?

My visual thoughts aren't usually very detailed. I can see things in my head, but the picture is kind of fuzzy.

I can visualise a computer, all it's parts and how they interact in my head.

I can't seem to do the same with people and interactions, those are fuzzy and unknowable.

My thoughts are definitely more detailed. When I think of a car the resulting image is detailed enough that I could tell you what the hubcaps look like, what color it is, what type of car it is, and stuff like that. More often then not I recall a specific time that I saw a car, and I could recall pretty well where it was and what the background consists of.

When I visualize something it always has a lot of detail. I can run a full simulation of a steam engine in my mind quite easily and it's detailed down to the texture of the metal and any scratches that may be on it. When I was younger I loved using this ability to design cool stuff. I don't think I could handle a whole computer (unless I found some ways to make the "rendering" process more efficient), but I can visualize electronic circuits rather well. It works incredibly well with orbital mechanics because space travel is my special interest and I know a ton about it.

I don't have a fully photographic memory and I do loose a lot of details (they are there, but I am unsure of weather they are real or made up sometimes), but my ability to recall images is definitely above average. For example I can tell you the color of the car that was in front of me the last time I was on the freeway even though I didn't consciously take note of it at the time (grey), the color of the last car I saw pulling out of a parking space when I was last driving around in a parking lot (white), and stuff like that.

I also have a very good memory for things I've heard, it's just not as good as my memory for things I have seen. For example a few days ago someone was talking to me while I was completely zoned out and after they finished saying what they were trying to say they asked if I was paying any attention. I was able to recall the audio log from the past 10-15 seconds and process it, able to then give a short summery of what they said.

I can tell you the gas level in my car at any given moment by recalling an image of the gas gauge from when I was in the car last (about 80% right now), yet I still always forget to fill it up when it needs it because my working memory sucks. Thanks brain.

I have only recently realized that my memory works in a rather unusual way, and I have been playing around with it a bit. Maybe I could get better with practice and be like Sherlock Homes, that would be awesome!

I have both decent and horrible visualization skills, depending on the situation. In a very relaxed state, I am capable of easily generating somewhat accurate mental images, and also of creating complicated images that I've never seen before. The "invented" images are often very artistic, and also seem to be generated with little to no effort, like dreams.

However, I am rarely in a very relaxed state, even when I'm sleeping. The only time I seem to be able to use this ability is if I'm lying down in a dark room with no distractions. Other things just seem to invade my mind, and keep me from being able to focus, usually things that are going on around me that I can't filter out.

So the majority of the time, my mental images are very fuzzy and incomplete, and I can't keep them in my mind for long. This also applies to things like mental math. I can do mental math, but I can't block out everything going on in my environment, and I lose concentration. But without distraction, I can do much more complicated math in my head.

It really annoys me, actually.

I don't tend to remember actual details; I tend to make up my own based upon what was there.

My memories can be fairly precise--but I don't have a photographic memory.

If words affect me, I think of the words quite a bit. If a conversation affects me, I think about the phraseology of the conversation quite a bit.

I'm not really sure. Somewhere in the middle, I guess. I see pictures and hear words when I think, with more emphasis on the words than the pictures. My inner voice is clear and sounds like me in real life (only richer/deeper and less stuffy sounding than I sound on recordings). My visual thoughts are clear and in no way fuzzy, but there's no way I could imagine all of a car's parts like in a catalog. My thoughts aren't that technical. I guess I tend to think more about things in my daily life as well as fictional stories and characters than things like that.

That said, I can easily think in words alone, but not pictures alone. The words are much more important to my thinking patterns. Even when thinking about fictional characters, for example, I "hear" them talking to each other, and their inner thoughts, basically like I'm watching a movie with dialogue and everything.

Hope that makes sense!

I naturally think in pictures, but I can transition to thinking in words if I need to. For me thinking in words is only useful for social interaction and thinking in pictures is better in every way except it's harder to communicate. When I think in pictures my internal dialogue becomes music, and unless I am in a social situation or doing scripting then I always have some tunes playing in near perfect detail. If you had a mind reading machine directed at me then it often would return elevator music.

What's really fun sometimes is to change the internal voice to sound robotic, female, or something else really weird.

very visual.

Though two dimensional. I can image a modern map of Europe, and can impose a map of the ancient Roman Empire on it and can then tick off which modern countries were in the ancient Roman Empire, and which not.

But some aspies can do it three dimensionally like gear heads who can visualize car engines, and a certain chemist who posts here who can visualize molecules in three D.

I have thought that are images (both still-shot style and film-style -- some are crisp, clear and detailed; some are fragmented and/or fuzzy and/or full of blank patches) and I have spatial thinking that's nothing but spatial information.

I think the majority of my thoughts have the concrete visual elements in them.

Same for me, except specific memories are quite detailed, especially as a toddler and kid.

It's interesting you should bring that up, because I can easily visualize things in 3D. I didn't think that it was unusual until now though.

To make a 3D model of something I recall a bunch of images of something I have seen a lot from multiple angles and stitch it together, guessing about details that are not in any of the images, or I could just create it from scratch myself. I can then recall that model any time, because for some reason I am super good at recalling what I have imagined (better then with things I have seen or heard). I have a 3D model of my car which is detailed down to where the scratches and dents are, where the junk is, and the license plate number which is really saying something because that car is pretty beat up and messy. I can also visualize the inner workings of car engines and 3D molecules interacting quite easily. When visualizing an engine (or anything for that matter) I can imagine kinesthetic sensations as well so it feels like an extension of me. I can feel the motion, pressure, temperature, and vibrations of the whole thing. I can change the "sim speed", see it in an exploded view, see through things, and do anything else I want to do. Most visual thinkers describe their visualization as a blank slate in front of them, but for me it's more of an empty volume that can be filled with anything. Even when I recall images they keep their depth perception information and look 3D.

I can visualize in 3D. I thought that most people could. I don't think it's really that unusual. I can rotate images in my head in all directions. Are there really people that only see pictures in 2D?

I learned in post-secondary school that there are people who can't see images in their head at all.

(One such person is responsible for the absurd theory that intelligent thought can't exist in the absence of language.)

^Strange. I can understand that those who are born blind, or who develop blindness early in life would probably not be able to see images in their heads, but I didn't think that it occurred in people with normal vision.

Something worth researching.

Visual thinker, they are detailed but for some reason, mirrored or reversed. And they change very very fast. So if I have a image in my head, it will stay in my head for a maximum of 5 seconds and change. Also a photographic memory so that helped a lot in tests in school but remember words in a book only worked 5% of the time, I can't read my photos in my brain.

I like my imaginative "movies" in my head more than recalling past or future events, I have this one sorta friends like sitcom in my head that has been playing daily starring my 6 sonic fan characters, they all hang out together but rarely get along or get along too well, it's a good time.