Can you visualize things in your head?

Post Reply New Topic

So I'm starting to realize my brain is different in more ways than just my ASD. I seem to lack the ability to visualize anything in my head. If I try to think of someone's face or a familiar room, I only have a very vague sense of what they're supposed to look like. If you were to ask me to describe a detail of them from memory, I would have a very hard time doing it. Also, when I'm reading fiction I never form a picture in my head of what the characters or settings are supposed to look like. In fact, I tend to ignore visual descriptions since it is very difficult for me to actually form pictures of them.

My question is, does anyone else have this problem? I know a lot of autistic people are supposed to be visual thinkers but I'm the opposite. When I was evaluated for ASD, I did very well on the verbal tests but not so well on spatial ones. So I'm just wondering if other aspies have this problem. Anyway, thanks for reading!

Here's an article on this problem if anyone's interested by the way. http://discovermagazine.com/2010/mar/23 ... -minds-eye

I'm sure the ability to visualise varies a lot between people.
I think faces are treated differently in the brain than other things.
I have good visualization except for faces. Reading fiction is like watching a movie for me, but I have trouble recognizing people I know let alone visualizing the face out of context.

Actually describing an image you see in your mind can be difficult even if you have good visualisation.

It depends on the type of writing and hints that are given to help you visualise. Sometimes visual descriptions are poorly worded and full of irrelevant detail. I once read a book where every second character had an 'aquiline nose'...the author had something in mind but it doesn't really help the reader.

I seem pretty good at visualizing scenery/settings, and situations--for example, once my dad made a comment about our cat twirling like a ballerina, and in my head there instantly flashed the image of this 14lb black-and-white male cat spinning about in a pink tutu.

But faces...I just cannot visualize them. Well, it's a little more complicated than that...I can get a general impression, and I might even imagine a sort of face based on a description I've been given, but it's like there's a sort of disconnect between that visualization and my mind's eye itself. Like it's behind a haze or something, and I can see it but I can't REALLY see it. If that makes any sense...?

I think in my case it might be due to me only being able to envision and describe faces as they're "all put together," and not being able to break them down into their component parts. I would be useless to a police sketch artist for this reason, since I just see faces, not individual characteristics of faces, unless I happen to be looking right at them while describing them. "What did his face look like?" Well...it looked like a face. Two eyes, a nose, a mouth. You know.

It's like there's just a generic face template in my imagination.

Also, unfortunately, even though I can vividly visualize settings and certain other things...those visualizations don't translate into artwork. I might see a setting as clear as day in my mind but should I try to put it down on paper, I'm almost always sorely disappointed. It's not that I'm lousy as an artist; I have a bit of skill. But again there's that weird disconnect/fog that keeps me from "describing" the details properly onto the drawn page.

I guess what I'm saying is like, something goes wrong somewhere between the visualization in my head, and me trying to make that visualization into something more concrete, whether it's a description of someone's face, or a drawing of some scenery. The results come out hazy and muddled.

Not sure how much sense I'm making, so the tl;dr version is, yes, I understand where you're coming from.

(I am not a diagnosed Aspie, BTW, though I show many signs of it. Just felt I should disclose that.)

Multiple intelligences. Or 8 intelligences.

Do you know of this theory?
They explain main ways how we interact with the world around us and learn things. There are plenty of simple tests which give a hint which ones you have high and which ones low on internet.

In short, they are musical–rhythmic, visual–spatial, verbal–linguistic, logical–mathematical, bodily–kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic.

As far as I know it is quite common for people on spectrum to have visual-spatial either extremely low or extremely high.

I'm very visual and I have no difficulties visualizing things.
But then again, I can't remember or recognize a single note, voice, tone or sound. I don't understand what is rhythm (I mean, I know the definition as provided by dictionaries, I just can't even clap my hands in rhythm).
Musical-rythmic is totally lacking - I also have APD (auditory processing disorder) so I often hear people talking but don't understand!

Isn't it interesting how we can all be so different?
I find it exiting!

I am on the extreme side of mental visualization. Since I am constantly working on scientific ideas, I can manipulate certain quantum equations in my head and then see how it will change the output (the visual component) without needing a computer. (This comes in very handy in describing how nuclear reactions work at the sub particle level.) It is something that I discovered long ago back in high school as I sat alone during lunch breaks. At the time, it surprised me that everyone else did not process information like that. I just assumed that since I can do it, it was common to have. It was later on in grad school that I learned how valuable that ability can be in my field. It does not mean that I am better than anyone else, just wired differently to do different things with that information.

I know on the math/science forum recently there was a question about being able to perceive higher dimensionalities than just 3-D visually, without using mathematical equations to do so. I can do that up to 12-D, however I have difficulty explaining what I "see" to those that cannot do the same thing. They do not look like the ones that I have seen described up on the internet, they are not curled up at the edges. I relate how I "see" them to a form of group theory in both chemistry and physics involving crystallography techniques that I learned in grad school.

Yes, I can.

I'm very much a visual thinker, to the point where I've considered signing up here with a new name and avatar that demonstrates it.

I'm eerily similar to John DeLancie's version of Q on Star Trek.
The creative power of the Q entails
visualizing something,
and then creating it.
As an artist, creative writer,
and yes, mischievous prankster and adventurer,
who enjoys wearing costumes to communicate and get at the truth ...
Being able to visualize things in my head is definitely who I am.

We all have our strengths and weaknesses, of course.
At the end of one Star Trek: Next Gen episode,
the question is asked
How can Q be so intelligent in some ways
but so lacking when it comes to understanding how to get along with human beings?

C'est la vie ...

...

As an artist and a writer, I am really good at visualizing things in my head, but when it comes to putting it down on paper and canvas can be another matter entirely. It usually never turns out the way I'd like it to, haha

I have that problem but I'm NOT a visual person. I have a rare low vision disorder & my brain has problems processing things I do see visually.

Yes, it has allowed me to teach myself organic chemistry and was also good for spelling tests as a child.

A bit of both - and if that sounds infuriating, it's because it is. I also tend to skim over visual descriptions; prose fiction generally has to be an odd combination of minimalist and very good if I'm to be struck by a physical detail. (Fortunately, I've read plenty of things that have displayed both qualities.) Poetry fares a little better, but I tend to prefer stark metaphor or simile over lines and lines of "Lo, and the forest was silvery-green, etc. etc." When it comes to characters, dialogue - internal or otherwise - does it for me. I love a good voice.

That having been said, I enjoy conceptualizing things in my head and can frequently play back certain scenes or visual memories that particularly stand out. Since (re)picking up a pencil and sketchpad a month ago, I've increasingly "drawn" artwork mentally before putting it down on paper - although whether or not it comes out exactly so, of course, varies.

for me I can visualize words that I want to say however it may come out as something totally different when I'm doing math I have issues of visualizing numbers into objects if I'm reading a fiction book (which I hardly do) I can't picture what the author is trying to convey which also affects me in my reading classes because I'm always asked picture how the person is feeling in this passage can you tell if she is angry or upset...to me I only see words

I dunno I have to visualize things in order for me to fully grasp "the bigger picture" somethings come easy somethings are rather difficult.

I don't have a very good photographic memory, I can't make out details in static images, like most people who think in pictures can. But I can do abstract visualizations very good. I can design entire electronic circuits in my head and simulate how they work as well. I can also convert math equations into abstract visualizations as well. I called this part of my imagination, "The swimming theater.". And the reason I called it that, is because I take abstract things and turn them in something that looks like modern art sculptures(very BIG ones.), and I can fly or swim around in this space and see the abstract sculpture from any angle I want. I can even turn myself(or it.) into a ghost and fly(or see.) through it as well. I wish I had a "video out" in the back of my head so I could plug this into a projector and show others what is going on in my head.

I can visualise things in my head.

They may not be 100% clear but its like looking at dimmed photo: the image is dark and lacks details but I clearly see the shapes and paterns.

It's especially good when I am imagining a room, building, part of city or landscape.

They return as a draft which I can fill with details if I focus on specific point. For example when I imagine what I see behind my window I see dimmed photo of the area with the shapes and darkened colors of street, houses, trees and the landscape but I am able to "zoom" to for example my neighbor house and see its shape, windows, balcony, garage, approach road etc. And if I ever paid attention I am able to "zoom" to a window and see the curtains and light source but thats only if that particular window ever made me interested in whats in there.

And I can also "zoom" to the inside of a room if I ever been inside it. I can clearly see how furniture and equipment related to each other and I see their shape as well as details that got my attention. It's like moving around the room and taking a few photos containing the field of view. I recall the look of a room part by part. I recall the door area and I "zoom" on what was in this area, then I move to the area on the left of door and "zoom" to the items there etc. And if I can't recall a spot it takes image of a fog taking just as much space as the real one did.

Same goes with rooms in a house. I "move" around the house and recall everything guided by the spacial relations between the fields of view. I use spacial relations to draw a map of the building (kitchen on right from front door, friends room above kitchen) and "zoom" to each room using field of view. If I don't know what is in a room it is imagined as a fog. I see the door to it and I figure out the shape by the house shape and the rooms around it but thats all.

I also have no problem with imagining specific items. If I am to imagine an apple I imagine the shape of an apple (in 3D) and give it colors. Now I can imagine it being turned around, bitten and even changed into a core.

But faces are a different story.

I can imagine someone clothes, hairstyle and features such as glasses but I have trouble recalling colors (unless I paid attention: "she is blond", "she often wears blue jacket") and I cannot "zoom" to the face no matter how hard I try. I can "zoom" to nose, eyes, ears, mouth etc if I focus hard enough - assuming that I ever paid attention to the points - but the face itself is gray, generic round shape with photos of different face parts glued to it. Prosopagnosia.