do you have visual thinking?

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if you walked someplace, and it's a long walk with many turns, do you remember the way and can you see it in your head? isnt that supposed to be an aspie thing?
because i have this problem, my feet remember the way but my brain doesnt. ask me how to get someplace i've been walking every day for years. i close my eyes and try to see the way but cant. i have to start walking and i'll get there.
i do, however, have visual thinking. say cut down on expanses and i kinda see a knife wound in my head. but that's a complete different story.

I am useless at picturing things in my head but I'm excellent at spatial thinking and have been complimented on my sense of direction.

If you make me take a series of random turns, I can still say which general direction we have travelled. I used to assume this was a video game player characteristic, since I make a map in my head as the area is uncovered to me, but I suppose it could be an AS thing instead.

Yep. I told a friend that I hadn't hung out with in six months last night that I can look at a map once and not only remember it exactly and draw it accurately for days but also navigate all of the roads/trails, etc. that populate the map. He didn't believe me so I had him draw some rough outline of an imaginary map, draw some 'roads,' write some imaginary town names, drew a river and a few other things (it was suitably complex, not like Pokemon's Kanto ), showed it to me for a few seconds and then at the end of the night, a few hours later, I re-drew it almost exact in every detail EXCEPT the town names. I had no idea what those were. I really don't think this is anything special but it does allow me to create every piece of art I draw from memory rather than doing still pieces of objects or landscape from pictures, etc. Another pointless tidbit; I can draw almost anything to photo-realism from memory, except human faces and bodies. For the life of me, I can not draw a face beyond something an elementary school student might produce.

I have a fairly good photographic memory, I can go further with it though. I can dismantle my Kawasaki kmx 200cc in my mind, anything I've done with it, I can take it apart piece by piece, nut by nut, component by component. That's the reason I'm so good at taking things apart, and putting them back together. Information I'm also good at remembering, which helps with engine diagnostics.

I can mentally map the majority of the city I live in, but I can't remember the road names by heart. My spatial reasoning skills are very good.

I am NT. Everything I hear or read is translated into visualization. I don't dismantle vehicles, but in general, my mental process works as UnvoicedMercy described.

I also have a strong kinesthetic learning style (body memory) which I have found to be remarkably reliable.

Verbal directions are useless to me unless I can follow along translating into picture memory.

And I have this kind of thinking also:

Verbal is my weak area in general. It's very difficult for me to remember names, dates, etc.

Directions.....I'm not so sure about. I can visualize it on a map, but I get lost after a few turns (I thought most people do). I'm much better after I use a map.

I think primarly in pictures and diagrams, but I seldom have the patience to actually put them to paper in anything anyone other than me can follow.

I can't visualize things from directions and I require someone else for guide in new and unfamiliar places.

I'm not sure how to answer the poll because the quote above describes me pretty well too. I can't tell you the name of everywhere I've been or when I was there but I can tell you how to get there and describe it in detail. I didn't know the name of the cross street that I've lived next to for years because I just navigate with 'pictures' rather than words. I can't follow verbal directions at all but if I see in a video or the directions use visual landmarks I'm fine. Once I've been somewhere I never forget how to get there but if someone asks me for directions they will get something like, " go to the 3rd cross street and make a right. When you see a huge pepper tree make a left. Keep going until you see a purple house on your left then make a right. etc etc." I just have a really hard time remembering names because they don't translate well into pictures.

As far as comparing to NTs I have no clue. People on the spectrum definitely don't have a monopoly on visual thinking. It may be slightly more common in ASD but I think anyone can have any kind of thinking style.

I used to think I had an excellent auditory memory, but now I realise I didn't remember the dialogue from TV shows and such as well as I did because I remembered what they said, rather I remembered the images that went with what they said. I discovered that it's actually my very sharp visual memory that lets me remember things so well when I was able to recite an entire 20-odd page picture book to myself after two reads. I've never been good at memorising text on a page, and it was then I realised I could do it because all I had to do was remember the picture that went with the text. I have a very difficult time remembering complicated or multistep verbal instructions without writing them down, but when someone is lecturing in class, I can remember what they said because of the images associated with the story I created in my head while listening. My mind is super weird.

I'm confused by the poll... How do you compare how you think to how another person thinks. I can't do that because I don't know how other people think, let alone all NTs as a whole. Besides, NTs do vary on learning styles, so I don't know why all NTs would think in words or what to assume about their general ability to not get lost. It's probably better than mine.

To answer the question, I think in words and can't picture stuff very well. When I listen to Temple Grandin speak on how her mind works, I know that's not me.

I think in both for different items...hard to explain really.

I understand written instructions better than oral instructions and understand oral instructions better than pictorial instructions. Most NTs I know have no problem at all understanding instructions no matter how these instructions are given. I memorize routes by memorizing landmarks.

I can't keep an image in my head without it transforming from a pen into a gigantic penis rocket~

Hence I can't draw anything from my head.

[quote="deltafunction"]

I don't really mind the whole 'comparing NT's to NAT's', But you're right there is no way of knowing how others think. Understanding the mind is impossible, but you can predict outcomes, and manipulate the mind to react how you wish it to though.

Anyone can be a visual thinker, but the mind can always be taught to utilise other methods.

What's NAT?